How Is Tyler Perry Co-Producing on Broadway While Still Flagged by Actors’ Equity?
(Photo: Desiree Navarro | WireImage | Getty Images)
by Chris Peterson
Reports this week say Tyler Perry has joined the producing team for the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Deadline reported that Perry is coming aboard as a co-producer, not the lead producer, but his name was still prominent enough to be treated as a meaningful part of the production’s rollout.
But the part of this story that should be making people pause is not just Tyler Perry. It is Actors’ Equity.
Perry has been listed on Equity’s current Do Not Work page under National Producers since 2015. Equity says that the list is meant to alert its members and sister unions to the non-union status of certain employers, as well as employers involved in failed negotiations, refusals to negotiate, or defaults on agreements. In other words, this is supposed to be a public warning, not a decorative page nobody is expected to take seriously.
And Perry did not end up there for some vague or forgotten reason. In 2015, Deadline reported that Madea on the Run was placed on Equity’s Do Not Work list because the producers had not signed an Equity contract. That same reporting said SAG-AFTRA issued a reciprocal notice to its members as well.
So here is the question: what exactly is Actors’ Equity doing if it is willing to keep Tyler Perry on a public Do Not Work list while Broadway carries on as if that listing has no practical meaning?
Because that is what this looks like. If Equity believes Perry still belongs on that list in April 2026, then the union is telling everyone that his labor history still matters. Fine. Then act like it matters. Stand behind the meaning of your own warning. But if Broadway can announce him as a welcome producing-team addition and the labor context barely registers, then Equity starts to look less like a union issuing a serious directive and more like an institution maintaining a symbolic document the industry has learned to ignore.
The press is not off the hook either. If Broadway media sites are going to spotlight Tyler Perry’s arrival as a notable enhancement to a production, then they should also have the nerve to mention the obvious labor context attached to his name.
None of this changes the importance of August Wilson or the excitement around seeing Joe Turner’s Come and Gone back on Broadway. But if Actors’ Equity’s Do Not Work list means what Equity says it means, then it cannot suddenly become background wallpaper when a famous name enters the room.
If Tyler Perry still belongs on that list, then Equity should be prepared for that fact to dominate the conversation when his name shows up in a Broadway announcement.
What do I want Actors’ Equity to do here? Clarity. Either explain why Tyler Perry is still on the Do Not Work list and defend what that means, or admit the list has become more symbolic than serious. Because right now, the problem is not just Perry’s producing credit; it is a union maintaining a public warning that Broadway, and apparently Equity itself, seems perfectly comfortable treating like it means nothing.