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Actors Equity Association is urging its members not to work with Tucson-based Chamber Music Plus Southwest.

Equity, which represents American stage actors and stage managers, warned in its June newsletter that its members "may not accept employment with this organization without an Equity contract."

Chamber Music Plus Southwest founder Harry Clark acknowledged that he is not affiliated with the union, nor does he operate under Equity contracts.

"We're not a theater organization," he explained. "It doesn't fit. If we were a theater organization, where actors came in for a week at a time and you had costumes and sets, that's Equity. What we do is no different than what the New York Philharmonic does. . . . It's a guest appearance by an actor; it's not an Equity situation. But they don't seem to understand this."

Equity's Flora Stamatiades, national director of the union's Organizing and Special Projects, could not be reached for comment this week. She is part of Equity's current talks to negotiate a new contract with Broadway League, which represents producers and theater owners. The union's pact expired Monday night, along with the screen actors' contracts in Hollywood.

Clark has been working with stage and TV actors for more than a dozen years staging dramatic readings in a classical-music setting. Among the actors who have worked with him over the past 13 years have been Lynn Redgrave, Theodore Bikel, Talia Shire, Louis Gossett Jr., Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Elke Sommer.

Clark, a veteran cellist, pens biographical monologues centered on famous composers. He and his pianist wife and partner, Sanda Schuldmann, then perform the composer's works while the actor performs the dramatic reading.

Clark said he has looked at Equity's contracts and none "comes even remotely close to applying to what we do."

"Harry sees us as a musical organization with an actor reading a script in their hands," said Chamber Music Plus managing director Gary Bacal. "I think what we have to remember is that Equity's relationship is with actors, and no actor has, in the history of Chamber Music Plus, requested an Equity contract."

Chamber Music Plus Southwest is an offshoot of Chamber Music Plus, which Clark and Schuldmann started nearly 30 years ago in Connecticut. The Tucson series was launched in 2003. Last year, Clark produced his final Connecticut series and moved the group full time to Tucson.

Equity apparently sent a letter to Chamber Music Plus at its old Connecticut address in 2007; Clark never saw it. He has not used the address in more than a year and mail is no longer forwarded, Bacal said. A letter in May went to the same Connecticut address. Again, Clark did not receive it, but he was notified about it by actor Armin Shimerman, an Equity member who is scheduled to perform with the group in its 2008-09 season.

Clark said he has no idea how or why Chamber Music Plus Southwest found its way onto Equity's radar. If it is a matter of pay, "we pay way, way, way more than Equity requires," he said.

Bacal said he has left messages for Stamatiades; he doesn't expect to hear from her or any Equity officials until next week, providing contract talks are wrapped up. When they do call, he plans to ask why the union did not make a better effort to contact Clark before publishing the notice in the June newsletter.

"If they know we exist, why did they send (the letters) to an address that hasn't been used in over a year?" he said. "They put this in their June newsletter and they haven't talked to us."

Clark said he is hoping "we're going to come to some agreement where we find some middle road."