Cameo Clips

ACTOR EMPLOYMENT TIME/
CONTRACT TERMINATION

The City Court of Rochester, New York, held that a cabaret theatre breached a guaranteed contract term for actors by firing them when a production closed. Misek v. Downstairs Cabaret Theatre Inc., 2009-SC-20623. Plaintiffs Benjamin Misek, Todd Durham and Lia Menaker were hired by the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre in 2009 to perform in the stage show Country Roads: The Songs of John Denver and in later to-be-specified productions. Justice Ellen Yacknin found that “it is evident that the contract[s] did not provide for the termination of plaintiffs' employment prior to the expiration of their specified minimum employment periods solely because of the closure of Country Roads.”

Downstairs Cabaret argued that the minimum employment term stipulated how long the actors were required to perform, rather than entitled to work. From a public policy perspective, Justice Yacknin found: “As construed by Downstairs Cabaret, the contract obligated the actors to perform in any production for as long as required by Downstairs Cabaret, subject to the actors' four weeks written notice, but simultaneously provided for the immediate termination of the actors' employment before the end of their minimum employment periods, with no advance notice whatsoever, upon the closure of a single production. Such an inequitable interpretation of the contract cannot be countenanced, particularly in light of a more reasonable and equitable interpretation of the contract that provides both parties a guaranteed minimum period of employment.”