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It’s safe to say that today’s picket line at Warner Bros in Burbank drew a little more attention that some other days. That’s because newly unionized strippers from North Hollywood turned out to support striking WGA writers — and they brought a pole along.
Have a look at some images and video from Strippers Day below.
The exotic dancers from Star Garden Topless Dive Bar officially joined Actors’ Equity in May after a 15-month battle with the venue’s owners. At that time, their rep — who goes by the mononym Reagan and was on-site at WB today — said: “If you have been following our journey, then you know this has been a long, exhausting fight, which is why this victory is so sweet. We put everything we have into this campaign.”
Reagan was joined today by some colleagues including Charm, who told Deadline: “I’m so happy to be here because on our picket line we had so much support from members of IATSE, WGA and other unions, so it’s been amazing to be able to pay it forward.”
Here are Reagan, Charm, May, Halo and Sinder — part of only the second strippers union in the U.S. and the first to organize this century — talking about why they came out to the line today:
The dual-union member Reagan mentioned in the clip is Lilith, who doubles as a WGA strike captain. She told deadline that she and the other members of Equity Strippers NoHo “wanted to come out in solidarity, bring a little of our party that we had on our picket lines and lift morale.” Mission accomplished:
There was a small but noticeable contingent of police outside WB today, and one officer told Deadline they turned out specifically to keep the peace on Strippers Day. They didn’t harass anyone, and there weren’t any incidents, but unsurprisingly there was more horn-honking from drivers on Olive Avenue than just about any other picket site during the 45-day-old strike. Lots of pedestrian passersby, most deploying cameras, dropped by also.
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Oh, and there were far more members of the media at this event than most if not all others since Day 1. Funny, we didn’t notice a lot of free food there …
The cops kept their distance but did move in at one point to have the pole taken down. But not before several people took a turn using it.
To paraphrase what Prince wrote and Sinead O’Connor more famously sang, nothing compares to unionized strippers doing their thing in support of a fair deal. Hit it, May:
Here are a few more shots from the scene between Gates 2 and 4 outside Warner Bros Studio:
Meanwhile, out on the other coast, the Broadway community — coming off a writer-less Tony Awards over the weekend — joined the WGA East on the picket lines for a Broadway Day Rally. And it was quite a turnout.
Paula Pell emceed the proceedings from a stage erected on Broadway between 43rd and 44th Street in an event kicked off by WGAE president Michael Winship. Attendees and speakers included the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles, Robert Schenkkan, Craig Bierko, Norbert Leo Butz, Jordan Cooper, Adam Pascal, Warren Leight and Seth Rudetsky among others.
Among those who performed were Bierko, who sang “Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man, and Cooper, the Tony-nominated Ain’t No Mo’ star and playwright, who belted out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
Here are some other scenes from Broadway:
