managers and the theatre owners. The Shubert family, who owned 70% of theatres in Manhattan, had no interest in production. Lee Shubert brokered an agreement with Equity called the 80-20 compromise. This agreement allowed one Fidelity or independent actor for every four Equity actors in a cast, thus giving lip service to the ideal of the open shop. Equity acquiesced to this since every non-Equity performer so employed would have to pay an amount equal to annual Equity dues into a special fund. In addition, Fidelity would have to agree to close its rolls; all future would-be actors must join Equity. The agreement would be for ten years, during which Equity pledged to accept any new actors whom the producers cast. To bring the agreement into effect, Lee Shubert and his allies within the PMA planned to force a vote to dissolve that coalition and create a new one called the Managers' Protective Association (MPA). The new Equity agreement would then be with the MPA, bypassing any PMA holdouts. However, Shubert's faction was shy of the votes needed to force the dissolution. Thus the PMA continued with reduced membership, while Shubert and his allies seceeded from it and set up the MPA. Those producers remaining in the PMA would now either be forced to adopt the Equity shop (a euphemism for the closed shop that Equity had first imposed on independent producers in 1921), or join the MPA. To forestall this new agreement, the PMA filed a plea with the New York Supreme Court for an injunction against Equity and the MPA. Supreme Court Justice McCook denied the plea, which ruling was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals on June 27, 1924. References Citations Sources Theatrical organizations in the United States Organizations established in 1919