NBT, Las Vegas musicians at standstill in union skirmish

With recorded music at its back and a squabble behind the scenes, “The Nutcracker” is marching on.

Nevada Ballet Theatre has formally informed its ticket-holders to the Tchaikovsky-scored holiday classic that a live orchestra is no longer planned for the shows at the Smith Center. The company is offering refunds for the original symphony dates and a meet-and-greet with cast members for the opening four performances Saturday and Sunday.

The first four shows have been presented and sold as “premium dates,” and have included “performances with and without orchestra.” A 3 p.m. Thursday (Dec. 12) deadline was set for online refund requests.

The orchestra for “The Nutcracker” was benched last week after a breakdown in collective bargaining agreement negotiations between NBT and the Musicians Union of Las Vegas Local 369.

These talks appear to be at a standstill. Friday, NBT attorney Mark Ricciardi sent a letter to Musicians Union of Las Vegas Local 369 President Yunior Lopez the two sides are at “impasse.” The union is pressing to revise that term and says it wants to return to CBA talks immediately. NBT has offered to work under the agreement forged a year ago for “The Nutcracker,” which was not a CBA but was a pact that at least allowed members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic to perform four shows.

The sticking point is the use of Electronic Entertainment, or audio recorded by Musicians Union players, on the NBT website. The CBA language submitted by the Musicians Union requires compensation for a maximum of 60-second clips to be used on the site (usually about $60 per performer, per clip). NBT has said those clips should be included in musicians’ compensation for this streaming audio.

The American Federation of Musicians (or AFM) lords over that provision of internet usage of union members’ performances. Local 369 membership stresses it does not have authority to change the language. Efforts to reach AFM leadership for comment Wednesday were successful.

In a group interview Tuesday, NBT’s leadership team of CEO and President Beth Barbre, Artistic Director Roy Kaiser and Chairman of the Board Jerry Nadal said that issue arrived to them late in the talks, and they would not accept what they deemed a late change without discussion.

They also said they were ready to enlist musicians outside of a signed CBA for “The Nutcracker.”

“In the entire time we’ve been at the Smith Center we’ve had a very productive relationship with the Las Vegas Phil. It is not accurate declined to work with the Phil,” Barbre said, referring to 2012, when NBT began its performances at Reynolds Hall. “It was only actually when Mr. Lopez came in that the issue changed, and that was because he drove the issue in that he did not want us working with the LVP unless we had a CBA.”

Nonetheless, most of the 40 players in the 2023 show, and those lined up this year, are Local 369 members. So is the musician who signed that show and was to sign musicians this year, Angela Chan-Stopa. A local musician member since 2006, Chan-Stopa was approved by Local 369 a year ago to sign musicians. And aside from NBT, the Musicians Union has a CBA with all Vegas performing-arts organizations, including the Philharmonic.

“What I’m most disappointed about is that we wanted to contract the musicians and have musicians play for four performances and two rehearsals for this weekend,” Barbre says. “We wanted to continue to negotiate in good faith, and the union turned us down.”

Lopez has since asked for members of the Local 369 board to meet with NBT leadership directly. In his letter to NBT counsel, “I still believe we were at the end of negotiations until the internet use language created confusion for your client.” At this writing, no such summit is scheduled.

Kaiser says “one clause” has snagged the negotiations this year.

“The union said that we could only do it if we had a completely executed, signed agreement,” says Kaiser, Artistic Director of Pennsylvania Ballet prior to taking over NBT a decade ago. “We had issue with one clause in there that we wanted to continue to explore and discuss, because it was important to us. So we were saying, ‘Let’s put that on the side, we have the financial package put in place, let’s go.’

“To be honest, it felt a little bit like we were being strong-armed into signing an agreement that we did not completely agree with.”

Monday, NBT offered to return to an updated version of last year’s agreement and pay between $201.46 and $284.02 per performer, per show, this year. That pact would have timed out in July. The union rejected that offer, less than a week before the show’s opening.

Barbre and Kaiser’s message to patrons stated, “Over the last several months, we have made every effort to reach a collective bargaining agreement with the Musicians Union, which has proven unsuccesful. Therefore, we are extremely disappointed that this weekend’s performances will not include orchestra as planned. It has always been our intent to hire local musicians to play for ‘The Nutcracker’ as we have done for many years.” The company remains “committed to presenting live music whenever possible throughout or performance season.”

But the union takes issue even with that time horizon. Lopez states the first CBA draft was sent to the union Dec. 2. “Negotiations began immediately after that. Any prior communications have been inquiries and not negotiations.”

Kaiser, conversely, disputes the starting point for these talks, saying they date to the spring. “It was not last Monday (Dec. 2) that we started negotiations. These have been going on for a long time.”

NBT has also recently negotiated a union contract with the dancers’ union American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). Those talks started pre-pandemic. NBT dancers joined formally in September 2022.

Asked how those talks compared, Kaiser said, “It actually took a long time, because it was our first one and we got hit with the pandemic right in the middle of the negotiations … But it went easier than this negotiation, I’ll tell you that.”

Cool Hang Alert

Travis Cloer, an architect for Cool Hang Alert for more than a decade, brings his “Christmas At My Place” show to Access Showroom at Aliante at 8 p.m. Saturday. Mark Shunock, Anne Martinez and Niki Scalera guest. Massive voices, mirth and merriment abound. Hit aliante.boydgaming.com for intel.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.