Calling for higher wages, stagehands at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly walked off the job Wednesday, forcing the theater to cancel its opening night performance of the fall season.
The stagehands, who last year voted to join the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 11, walked out of the theater immediately following an afternoon preview for “Mamma Mia!” They were joined by fellow union members in the orchestra and cast, who vowed not to cross the picket line for the Wednesday night performance. The production, the first at the theater since it was shuttered during the pandemic, is set to run through Oct. 17.
“The company has refused to give us fair pay,” said Myles McCann, a master carpenter at the theater. “We will continue to be on strike until such a time that they give us the respect of a decent living wage and decent benefits.”
The strike comes after negotiations ground to a halt recently, when stagehands say the company ignored their final offer of a base pay rate of $22 an hour. They voted to authorize the strike last week.
“They pay the actors union rates, they pay the musicians union rates, but they don’t want to pay us anywhere near the union rates,” said McCann, one of 18 stagehands represented by the union.
Bill Hanney, owner and producer of the theater, vowed the show would go on despite the work stoppage.
“I’m going to do the show tonight if it’s a cappella,” Hanney said shortly after the stagehands walked out but before the cast decided not to cross the picket line. He allowed, however, that he may have to ask ticket-holders back to attend a later performance.
“Everyone is going to come back — whatever it takes,” said Hanney, who did not respond to subsequent requests for comment following the cancellation. “This theater is not going to close because of one bunch of people who don’t understand where they are.”
According to the union, the North Shore theater pays its stagehands 60 percent less than the area’s industry average for work that covers everything from props to sound.
“We just want people to be paid at an appropriate rate,” said Christopher Welling, president of Local 11. He said members of the actors and musicians unions often work at a lesser rate when they perform at the North Shore theater. “We proposed a rate that was in the range that those other unions are getting, but it was it was outright rejected.”
Hanney disputed the union’s claim of unfair pay, saying wages boil down to simple economics for a regional theater.
“The math doesn’t work,” said Hanney, who also owns Theatre by the Sea in Wakefield, R.I. “They are presenting us rates that go to big theaters in Boston, Providence, New York — they don’t get what type of theater we have here.”
Hanney, who described his theater as a “steppingstone” to bigger venues, said management has gone as far as it can at the negotiating table.
“We just can’t get to where they have to be,” he said, adding that he’s largely avoided labor issues over the past decade. “I never heard anybody complain before.”
The strike comes just days after IATSE members around the country working in film and television production voted to authorize a strike over similar issues of pay, work conditions, and scheduling.
Pat Hollenbeck, president of the Boston Musicians’ Association, said his union won’t cross the picket line until the matter is resolved.
“It’s heinous,” he said. “They’re just asking to be provided a livable wage.”
Malcolm Gay can be reached at malcolm.gay@globe.com.