Waiting for Lefty in L.A.

At the end of Clifford Odets’ classic 1935 play Waiting for Lefty, a union agitator cries out to the exploited cab drivers of New York: “Hello America! We are the storm birds of the working class workers of the world….What’s the answer?” The frenzied cabbies all shout in response: “Strike!” While the membership of the Writers Guild of America is hardly the storm birds of the working class, the current strike against the studios and networks is a reminder of the power of unions and the results of collective bargaining organizations that began in the mid-19th century in America and finally found their power when congress created the Department of Labor in 1913.

In 1997 a sitcom I was producing and directing was canceled. The show was Working starring Fred Savage. We were in NBC’s prime time schedule and struggled to find an audience for two seasons. When we were canceled, our audience share was somewhere around 14 million viewers a week. That wasn’t enough, because shows like Friends were pulling 20–25 million viewers and we were expected to do better being on the same schedule. By comparison, a show today on any network that pulls 5 million viewers in is considered a smash hit. The lesson? The labyrinth of Hollywood’s definitions of success is constantly evolving. As Einstein pointed out, it’s all relative. So is the accounting.I have fond memories of working with the cast, crew, and writers of the show. NBC was also a great place to be in those days. I ended up directing dozens of episodes of their famous “Must See TV” lineup, including, yes, Friends (I directed the “PIVOT!” episode for reference.)

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