Inequitable?

Two recent articles by Don Shirley raise questions in my mind: “Director Fills In on Broadway” (July 4), in which the artistic director-executive producer of Deaf West covered a role for an injured actor in a New York show, and “Making Room for Musicals” (July 6), which stated that Actors’ Equity plans no action against a nonunion Cameron Mackintosh spectacle set for L.A.’s Kodak Theatre.

I’m neither an actor nor an Equity member, but I can’t help being curious. In the first instance, why had there been no understudy under contract and rehearsed to go on? And in the second, since when is the Kodak, Hollywood’s newest crown jewel, a 99-Seat Plan?

And why, when it appears that actors are being shortchanged, isn’t The Times put- ting hard questions to Actors’ Equity, the organization that is supposed to look out for its members’ interests and livelihood?

Preston Neal Jones

Hollywood