Brooke Shields Has Been Elected President of  The Actors Equity Association

Actors Equity if you don’t know is the union for theater actors. Now Brooke Shields has just become its President.

It’s 2024 and Brooke Shields has been elected president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents about 51,000 actors and stage managers on Broadway and nationwide. Shields won the election over stage manager Erin Maureen Koster. Erin Maureen Koster is a stage manager and the third vice president at Actors’ Equity. Brokke Shields also won against Wydetta Carter, an actor who had been serving as Equity’s first vice president. Her four-year term begins effective immediately. After the news was announced, Brooke Shields posted on her personal Instagram saying she was “honored and grateful” to have been elected.

“I promise to lead with strength and compassion, and I will stand up for you and command the respect that we deserve as an acting community,” Shields wrote. “Also to those who ran, I did not run against you, I ran with you and for you. I look forward to listening to you.”

In a video annoucing her bid for AEA Presidency, Shields said she wanted to be able to use her star power, as well as her experience on Broadway, to expand the profile of being an Equity member. 

“I want Equity to be in the position to command the respect that we deserve, whether it’s at the bargaining table or in DC or in every state house and city hall across the country, where we want to lobby for arts funding. I want to use all of the goodwill, and the advantages that I have built up in my career over the years, to be able to grow the value of being an Equity member,” she said.

Brooke Shields has five Broadway credits as a replacement star, which include playing Morticia Addams during the run of The Addams Family in 2011, Sally Bowles in 2001 during the run of Cabaret, and Roxie Hart in Chicago in 2005. Her first role was as Betty Rizzo in Grease in 1994. This win makes her one of the highest profile presidents for Actors’ Equity. It is worth to note that Kate Shindle was a former Miss America. Ellen Burstyn held the role from 1982 to 1985 and Ron Silver was president from 1991 to 2000.