On Theater: A 10 p.m. curfew for kid actors?

That draft blowing around Broadway is not what you think. The chill wind is coming from a legal draft - a 39-page proposal with threatening implications for "Billy Elliot," "The Lion King," "Mary Poppins," "The Addams Family" and any future show that uses actors younger than 18.

Monday at 10 a.m., unions, producers and parents are expected to descend on the New York State Department of Labor's Safety and Health Division on Varick Street. The meeting is the third and final public hearing about proposed work-rule changes for child performers in theater, movies and television.

It is hard to argue about regulations intended, according to the extremely specific and detailed document, "to safeguard the health, education, morals and general welfare of child performers." Who wouldn't want to protect kids from any kind of exploitation, especially for our entertainment?

But the new regulations propose changes that seem oblivious to the realities of professional acting life. For the theater, the shocker is the one that restricts child actors from working past 10 p.m. Since virtually all shows, particularly musicals, end closer to 11, this would make big trouble for any production that requires anyone under 18.

The proposal sets strict hours for work, schooling, rest and recreation. Actors from 9 to 15 years old would be allowed to work no more than five hours. If the rules go through, will we be asked to start "Gypsy" at 6 p.m., to only see "The Sound of Music" at matinees, to forget little orphaned "Annie" and her "hard-knock life" altogether?

With all this potential upheaval, one might assume that something awful has been happening to children onstage and on sets. Why else would the state agency, the same one that demanded new safety procedures at "Spider-Man," tackle three major industries with such sweeping regulations?

Leo Rosales, spokesman for the department of labor, says the proposed rules are not a reaction to anything bad. Instead, he says, they are the result of a 2008 law that put the power to regulate child performers into the hands of the commissioner of labor. Before then, he says, the department was the place where producers got work permits for young actors. "There were laws to strengthen protections in 2003, but the commissioner didn't have any regulations in terms of end time and start time." The stricter, but perhaps not always better, proposals were made public in November. Rosales notes that the key word to these regulations at this point is "proposed," adding that "we want to get public participation. If there wasn't any reaction, we would have been disappointed."

Keith Halpern, director of labor for the Broadway League, seems exasperated but hopeful that the labor department will work with affected industries and make adjustments. "I don't think they expected the reactions they've gotten," he says. "I sincerely hope they snap out of it. We're all fully supporting some kind of regulations, but these have the potential to create real problems."

Actors' Equity Association already protects what the union calls "juvenile actors," including their education, in its contract with producers. Tutoring, 15 hours a week, is provided by a private firm called On Location Education. Maria Somma, spokeswoman for the union, says the "language" of the proposals doesn't "coincide with our work environment." She hopes to get what is called a "carve out" to exclude theater kids from the 10 p.m. curfew.

Parents of children in TV, movies and commercials have a different concern. For child performers older than 6, the new rules do away with "sight and sound" rights - that is, the parents' right, guaranteed in the Screen Actors Guild contract, to be within sight and sound of their child during work and schooling. Instead, the employer will designate a "responsible person" to supervise the child and "ensure the employer acts in the child performer's interests."

In December, Kelly Crisp, a furious mom who once worked as a lawyer specializing in sex crimes, set up the Child Performers Coalition and website to pressure the labor department to "table" the proposals and include the coalition in drafting new ones.

Horror stories are legend in kid entertainment, of course. The stage monster/mother was immortalized in "Gypsy." And for every Shirley Temple who grows up to be an ambassador, the streets are littered with the early blooms and public crashes of the likes of Gary Coleman and Lindsay Lohan. If you Google "child actors," which I did this week, the sobering list of suggested topics includes "where are they now?," "gone bad" and "who died young."

I also called my idea of an expert, Lauretta Kowalik, of Wantagh, whose son Trent, 15, spent almost a third of his life auditioning, rehearsing and starring in the virtuosically challenging "Billy Elliot." (Trent update: He left the show in March when his voice got too low and his bones got too tall. He's studying at American Ballet Theatre's school and just finished the company's "Nutcracker" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But Broadway is in his blood.)

Hearing about the proposed new regulations, his mom said, with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, "It's wonderful that the great state of New York is trying to protect young performers. But I have to question what they're trying to achieve."

She worries that the department of labor is "missing the whole emotional end of it, the lifestyle, what the kids aspire to. That's just as important as the number of hours they get to sleep."

And, she asks, what about other children who excel in music, dance, athletics? "They all spend incredible hours at it. Nobody is throwing these kids to the wolves. Schedules aren't cut-and-dried. They can be tweaked."

Rosales encourages people to submit written comments at the labor department's public hearing or, through Feb. 7, by e-mailing jeffrey.shapiro@labor.ny.gov. "We want people to get involved," he says. "We want people to have an idea how to make this better. We'll read every comment and, if we feel the regulations should be changed again, we will revise them." And the rest of us can watch.