Meet Your Local Board Officers

Meet your local elected leaders: This month, you are invited to learn more about your local board officers — Bob Davis, Peter Moore, Barry ZeVan and Elena Giannetti — in their own voices.

Bob Davis, President: I joined both SAG and AFTRA in Los Angeles many, many years ago to do commercials. I remember being amazed when AFTRA informed me that I had qualified for a full year of health insurance, and I hadn’t even joined the union yet! Moving to the Twin Cities in the 1980s, I rode the boom and did a lot of commercials, industrial films (now called ‘Co/Ed’), and lots of theater. In my experience, the Twin Cities are an amazing place to be an actor! When a movie comes to town, I often get an audition. I appeared in Factotum, A Simple Plan, Herman USA, among others. I also starred as Algo in Algo’s Factory, a science show for kids that ran for a year on the now-defunct UPN Network. It was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to do a variety of characters. Now I mostly do plays at the Guthrie, Park Square, Ten Thousand Things and other theaters. This winter, I’m traveling to Boston and New York with Nice Fish, a show we developed at the Guthrie. This is the first time I have worked out of state since I moved here in 1982. I joined the local board a number of years ago and continue to stay because, if we don’t work for our union now, in 20 years a group of underpaid, exploited actors will get together and say, “Hey, we’re getting screwed! Let’s form a union!” It seems better and easier to save the one we’ve got.

Peter Moore, 1st Vice President: I am 59 years old and joined AFTRA in 1978 and SAG in 1980. After spending three years in New York, I moved back to the Twin Cities in 1983 and have been here ever since. I work both in film and in the theater. Recently, I played a scene with Woody Harrelson in (the locally shot film) Wilson, and also choreographed a fight between Cheryl Hines and Laura Dern in the same film. Over the years, I have done a lot of live theater and am currently performing in The Sound of Music at the Ordway Theater. Initially I decided to join the board because I thought that would be my best shot to make some of the changes I wanted to see happen in the union. It’s been slow going at times but good changes have recently come about — the local’s Co/Ed industrial contract waiver, for example — and I’m hopeful that there are more to come. Next in our sights is the possibility of creating a local code for commercials that will allow us to compete with non-union talent and recover a lot of lost earnings. 

Barry ZeVan, 2nd Vice President: Since age 5½, I have continuously been a talent in the professional broadcasting and entertainment industry. I’ve became a member of multiple unions — including SAG, AFTRA and AEA in 1952-53 — and I served for many years on local boards in the Twin Cities and in Detroit. In 2013, I was inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame. In addition to being a Telly Award-winning, three-time Emmy-nominated talent, writer, director and production designer, locally, nationally and internationally, I was honored to have garnered the highest local ratings in U.S. television broadcasting history as “Barry ZeVan, the weatherman” in Minneapolis-St. Paul in the mid-1970s. Currently, I’m spending time finishing my autobiography: Thank you, Jerry Stiller, for urging me to write this book, which is scheduled to be published in May 2016.

Elena Giannetti, 3rd Vice President: I’m a Minneapolis native and have worked in theater since the age of 6, performing at many top Twin Cities theaters, including the Guthrie, Children’s Theatre Company and Mixed Blood. I received my AFTRA card in the early 1980s doing commercials and later worked on many corporate industrials. Hollywood lured me to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s to pursue film work, and that eventually led to a move to London. After living abroad in Europe and starting a family, in 2004 I moved back to the Minneapolis area and have been a member of the acting community ever since, appearing on many local stages, including Park Square, History Theater and Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company. Since my return, much of my SAG-AFTRA work has now shifted to film and TV. In 2013, I joined the SAG-AFTRA Local Board to share a broad range of talents and outreach skills to help rebuild our local union work and strengthen our local membership. I am looking forward to working on some new initiatives to engage our new and younger members and educational outreach to film producers in the region.

This item was originally featured in the January 2016 local newsletter.