Cynthia Nixon, Wanda Sykes, and many more take to 30 Rock and speak amid writers’ strike

Three weeks into the writers’ strike, the Writers Guild of America took over New York City’s legendary Rockefeller Plaza to make one thing crystal and rightfully clear to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP): They’re not backing down.

The WGA East organized a vibrant rally on May 23 below the iconic 30 Rock building, home to Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Seth Meyers, and the NBC and Comcast offices. It’s also the structure that inspired NBC’s long-running, beloved sitcom,
30 Rock (a show that, a decade ago, was impacted by the previous strike). The adrenaline-filled energy from solidarity just can’t be beaten, and thankfully, the WGA wasn’t alone. Members of the SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and other labor unions showed up in numbers to support the writers demanding fair compensation for their work. What else did corporations promoting AI over real writing talent expect?

The 30 Rock rally witnessed impressive speakers, from And Just Like That…’s Cynthia Nixon to Broad City’s Ilana Glazer, from playwright Tony Kushner to Good Omens’ Neil Gaiman. The A.V. Club did some boots-on-the-ground reporting to bring you rousing, insightful quotes from everyone who took the stage supporting the WGA, including exclusive comments from Girls5eva and SNL’s Paula Pell and rally emcee Josh Gondelman, former writer at Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.

[The following speeches have been condensed.]

Josh Gondelman, WGA rally emcee: “We’re fighting for what’s fair”

“30 Rock is a legendary place where TV gets made. There’s literally a TV show named after it. It’s one of the few addresses everyone knows and associates with NBC and TV production, so getting everyone here gives the rally a special energy…We’re here because we’re fighting for what’s right and what’s fair, it’s part of the fabric of the same fight of workers vs. corporatism. We’re fighting for the future of writing as a sustainable profession. I think that’s been reported responsibly, but I don’t know if the message has hit home with people who have no connection to this. The strike is about the people who want to keep writing and people who should be brought in but don’t have a strong foothold in the industry yet. We’re trying to keep traditionally marginalized groups from being squeezed out because the studios are trying to earn writing into a gig economy job,” Gondelman told The A.V. Club.