Locals are numbered according to the order in which they were first chartered; New York is #1, Baltimore is #19, we're #22. Today there are locals over #500, but we've been around since the early days. We have retired members in our local who worked vaudeville theaters and touring shows that traveled by train. We have members who worked in local theaters that have long been demolished and started
working well before the Kennedy Center was built. We have members who started a local scenery building shop, National Scenery Studios, over 20 years ago and have built scenery for many major shows, commercials, and films, such as "The Kennedy Center Honors", "Sunset Boulevard", "Phantom of the Opera", "The Tap Dance Kid", and "The Tony Awards.” And our members have worked since opening day at the National Theater, The Warner Theater, The Kennedy Center, Wolftrap's Filene Center, Verizon Center, and Strathmore. We have also been one of the premier tryout cities for Broadway shows, even though expenses of such productions have made out of town tryouts fewer and fewer. Shows beginning their runs here have included Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Whistle Down the Wind", "Crazy For You", and the 50th Anniversary production of “West Side Story.” For many years, before videotape, our members worked in the news business as well as
in theaters. Newsreels, live news reporting on film, used a lot of crews all over the area, as well as traveling all over the world. We still do big live TV events, but day to day TV uses much smaller crews, so our business has shifted. Before film production jurisdiction shifted to Local 487, many 22 members worked on major films like "A Few Good Men", "Broadcast News", "The Exorcist", "The Silence of the Lambs", etc., and many people on the 22 referral list are also on 487's list. We now number about 360 cardholding members and a referral list over three times that size. We have contracts with over 15 venues in the area, including 7 in the Kennedy Center alone. We work in many more venues under our general "book" contracts. They cover hotel conventions, live television shoots, parties and meetings, rigging jobs in places like the Smithsonian museums or outdoors on the Mall, concerts in stadiums and arenas, and major events all over the city like the presidential inaugurations
