venue

At the Basement, a haunted escape room experience in Sylmar, patrons attempt to evade a deranged serial killer by solving puzzles.

Now the actors, who work as game masters and perform as distressed abductees at the venue, will be frightening their guests while under union protection.

This week, the Basement’s union voted unanimously to ratify its first working contract, making it the first and only escape room to have a union and operate under a collective bargaining agreement. The group is recognized as part of the Actors’ Equity Assn., which represents more than 51,000 actors and managers in live entertainment.

Jenna Wagner, an actor at the Basement, said the new contract, bargained by a dozen employees including herself, will “improve general unit morale.” It addresses higher wages and greater safety provisions as well as scheduling and media protections.

The Basement’s workers are the first escape room actors to successfully unionize.

(THE BASEMENT: A Live Escape Room Experience and Elwood Walker)

“It’s, of course, setting a precedent. A lot of people don’t see working at an escape room as something worthy of being recognized. Sometimes when you say, ‘I’m an actor at an escape room.’ People just say ‘Oh, OK,’” Wagner said. “It feels very validating [to unionize like this] because we are actors. We are performing every day.”

The Basement’s union was formed two years ago. Management, led by founder and chief executive Kayden Ressel, voluntarily recognized its workers’ efforts to join Actors’ Equity. Ressel said he used to work as a scare actor at haunted attractions so he understood where his employees were coming from.

“Their values seemed to be in alignment with what I really wanted my business to be in the first place. So, we were excited” about the union efforts, Ressel said. He’s hoping the finalized contract “will raise the bar” for other escape rooms.

The Sylmar attraction first opened in 2014 and employs 15 people. Across 3,000 square feet, it offers four interactive room choices where groups get to decide between escaping different areas of the haunted house. Live actors are involved in three of the four experiences. (The Basement is one of the few escape rooms to hire actors.) Two other Basement locations can be found in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Mo.

Ressel said he’s considering offering a discount of 10% to 20% for customers who belong to unions.

The popularity of escape rooms in the U.S. goes back to the early 2010s, when interest in interactive experiences was at an all-time high. Today, there are around 75 escape rooms in the L.A. area and more than 2,000 across the country. According to data from the media company Room Escape Artist and the escape room app Morty, the industry stabilized at the current facility count in 2022, after shrinking more than 10% during the pandemic.

The Basement’s workers are the first escape room actors to successfully unionize.

(THE BASEMENT: A Live Escape Room Experience and Elwood Walker)

Noah Nelson, a professor at the California Institute of the Arts and founder of immersive arts publication No Proscenium, said Actors’ Equity’s recognition of the Basement’s workers is a step in the right direction as the union welcomes more nontraditional units.

“There’s something to be said about the value of live entertainment being recognized. It goes beyond the venues that people would traditionally associate with that whether that is a regional theater, a Broadway house or a concert venue,” Nelson said. “There is an industry here that stretches beyond just the big houses, and at the end of the day, I view the signs of organizing in these spaces as nothing but a good sign for the overall health of the industry.”

The Actors’ Equity Assn. was founded in 1913 and is known for representing live performers typically in theatrical productions. In recent years, the definition of live entertainment has expanded, and Actors’ Equity has recognized performers at the Griffith Observatory, Drunk Shakespeare companies and even the dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood. There also are ongoing negotiations for Disneyland’s cast members and the entertainers at the Casa Bonita restaurant in Denver.

Stefanie Frey, the director of organizing and mobilization at Actors’ Equity, said in a statement that the union views “escape rooms and similar immersive entertainment experiences as another live stage.” She also said the union expects “others in this growing community will seek out our union for representation.”

Actress Brooke Shields, the president of Actors’ Equity, said, “Negotiating a first contract is always a challenge, and in this case, we had no other unionized escape rooms to use for a model.”

“These workers stuck together through a long process, and seeing what they’ve achieved, I’m sure they agree it was worth it,” she said in a statement. “They have made history for a swiftly growing sector of our industry.”

The tumult continues at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, Jean Davidson, steps down from her role to become executive director and chief executive of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Davidson will assume her new position May 4, the Wallis announced Friday.

Davidson is not new to L.A., having served as the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Music Center from 2015 to 2023. She left the Master Chorale for the NSO in Washington, D.C., where she worked for two years until President Trump began his controversial takeover of the Kennedy Center, firing its board and installing himself as chairman. Major artist defections ensued, culminating with a board vote to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center in December and February’s surprise announcement that the center would close for two years for renovations, beginning July 4.

“I’ve learned a lot in the last three years, and I think it’s no secret that it’s been a hard year,” Davidson told The Times, adding that the politicization of the Kennedy Center was a factor in her decision-making. “I had intended to stay through the [orchestra’s] 100th anniversary in 2031, but found it more and more difficult to achieve the goals that we had set out to achieve given the external forces that are at work that are just so far beyond my control.”

It seemed like “I had reached a natural ending point,” she said.

With the imminent closure of the Kennedy Center, speculation has swirled around the NSO’s future, especially in light of the Washington National Opera’s decision in January to cut ties with the storied venue, which has been its home since 1971. The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed leadership, however, made it clear that it intended to support the NSO in the long term, and the orchestra’s board chair assured musicians that the orchestra and its staff would remain intact.

Davidson said the NSO is in the process of identifying venues for the next two years, and that the orchestra has been told by the Kennedy Center that its financial support is not in question.

“Many venue operators in the D.C. area have been very generously reaching out to us, asking how they can help,” she said. “Of course, we plan our seasons years in advance, and so next season was already planned. We already have conductors and soloists and all of that, and so it’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle aligning our existing programming and obligations to those artists with venues that are appropriate for those programs.”

It will take several more weeks to come up with a cohesive plan and it will probably include several venues, “but we will have a season,” Davidson said. “And we hope that everybody will come.”

In many ways, Davidson said, the NSO is stronger than it has been in quite some time. During her tenure, Davidson helped reboot the orchestra’s international and domestic touring, which includes upcoming shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall in May and at the Hollywood Bowl in August. The orchestra also extended acclaimed music director Gianandrea Noseda’s contract through 2031.

“The orchestra is just playing at such a high level and they really have never sounded so good,” said Davidson, echoing what notable critics have also been saying. “We’re still welcoming many new players after our audition process, and I think that’s all very positive for the NSO.”

Davidson knows that leaving her role will be difficult for the orchestra, but she believes it will emerge stronger.

“I care deeply about the NSO and I am so proud of everything that we’ve accomplished together. I think the world of Gianandrea, of [principal conductor] Steven Reineke, our musicians, our staff and board — it’s a great community of people,” said Davidson.

Davidson also believes that the upcoming renovations to the Kennedy Center will ultimately result in a better experience for audiences and artists. She just wishes there had been much more advance notice.

“Usually orchestras will plan for being out of their hall years in advance, and we only have months to do that, so it is causing a bit of strain,” she said. “I think the most important thing is that our audiences and donors continue to support the NSO during this transition period.”

Davidson will now embark on her own transition as she moves from D.C. to L.A., rejoining her husband who has stayed in the area as a music professor at UC Irvine.

“This is an opportunity that’s been on my bucket list of things that I want to do in my life and it seems like the right time,” said Davidson of her new role at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.

Compared with the NSO, the Wallis is practically brand new, having opened in 2013.

Davidson is excited that there is lots of room for growth, and that the Wallis has evolved into one of the region’s most exciting multidisciplinary performing arts presenters and home base to a variety of local arts groups.

“I think anytime you’re starting a new role, there’s a lot of learning that needs to occur,” Davidson said. “And I’m not somebody that is prone to walking in with a big vision that’s going to suddenly change course. I think they’ve been doing a lot of great work and so I’m looking forward to collaborating with the team that’s there — to learn and to create a shared vision for the future.”

It’s an exciting time to be in Los Angeles, Davidson said.

“The last decade or so has seen a lot of growth in the art sector, and there are so many talented artists and organizations in L.A. that need a place to perform.”