Last week, I heard a few actors wondering out loud whether their Actors’ Equity memberships were worth the dues.
One of their complaints had never occurred to me. They can’t be cast in lesser roles at many of the companies that use lower-level Equity contracts, they said. Those companies hire the number of Equity members required by the contract and then hire non-Equity actors for the rest of the roles.
Many Equity shows only have a very few contracts to offer to their cast - the rest of the roles going to non-Equity actors.
Isn’t this a case of blaming the good for not being the perfect?
At least these companies are making efforts to pay some members of Equity on a scale significantly better than the tiny fees required by the 99-Seat Plan. If the complaining Equity members were cast tomorrow in one of these companies’ roles that fell under the Equity contract, would they change their tune? I don’t know, but I also spoke last week with a happy camper who, while in one of those contract roles at a midsize theater, finally became vested in the Equity pension plan.
I’m no expert on Equity’s contracts. But I’m confident that if more actors were employed on them, L.A. theater would improve. More of L.A.’s stage acting would resemble a real job, instead of a hobby that can be easily abandoned at the first sign of a commercial gig.
In the long run, stage actors are not as likely to burn out if they’re paid for rehearsals and health plans - and if they get more than gas-reimbursement money for performances.
If a seasoned actor resigned from Equity in order to save the dues money - with the hopes of landing small roles in larger productions - it would demonstrate only that here is an actor who doesn’t take stage work seriously. This wouldn’t be a great shock, considering that most actors rely on screen roles for their acting income, but don’t forget that the actors’ unions try to respect each others’ contracts. So members of SAG and AFTRA (or AGVA or AGMA) break the rules if they take non-Equity roles on stage - and they could be penalized.
Of course I’m not an actor. But I know this: Just about every week, when I scan the long lists of productions that are eligible for reviews, it’s useful to know whether Equity actors are performing - and more specifically, how many Equity actors.
True, Equity status doesn’t invariably translate to high quality. And non-Equity isn’t synonymous with “bad” - for example, I’ve enjoyed the youthful, intimate productions of big musicals by the Musical Theatre of Los Angeles, even though their current Oklahoma! is completely non-Equity.
But Equity status at least indicates a certain professional baseline - which is just about the only criterion that an editor who’s assigning reviews or a self-assigning critic has, other than his or her knowledge and opinion of the previous work by a show’s creative talent.
Assignment editors at today’s cost-cutting L.A. Times or most other institutions probably wouldn’t have the time or staff to ask questions about a production’s Equity status. The names of Equity actors are usually marked with an asterisk in a show’s program, but that won’t help the editor who doesn’t have a program. Maybe L.A.’s theater publicists should offer some help.
How about regularly mentioning the number of Equity actors (and even the name of the contract or plan) in the press release? That kind of information, plus the seating capacity, might help some productions get reviewed more easily than others with less impressive information along those lines. Producers who pay Equity wages shouldn’t hesitate to take credit for it.
Then again, producers on Equity contracts, below the LORT level but above the 99-Seat Plan, often shy away from serving as their own advocates. After I posted my thoughts last week on the Times’ (and the Daily News’) lack of coverage of some of their shows, the only posted comments came from people affiliated with smaller productions who wanted to point out that their shows, too, were ignored by the Times.
That the Times is extremely inconsistent in its coverage of smaller shows hardly needs to be repeated. Last week the Times Theater Beat - a Friday column that was traditionally a vehicle for 3-5 short reviews of smaller L.A. shows - consisted of one longish review of what sounded like a routine Old Globe production of The Taming of the Shrew (in San Diego!) as well as a review of the Troubadour Theater’s ChiPS the Musical at the midsize Falcon (at least it got a Times review, which is more than you can say for the Troubies’ last premiere, Frosty the Snow Manilow).
In the current zero-sum climate, it’s true that more coverage of L.A.’s midsize shows on Equity contracts might result in less coverage of sub-100-seat shows. That would be a shame, and I don’t criticize anyone affiliated with a small production for promoting it. But producers on the midsize level should even more aggressively promote their shows, because theirs are much rarer - and much more vital for the overall health of L.A. theater. And Equity actors should seek not to remove themselves from Equity but rather to extend the number of Equity contracts that are available in L.A.
Speaking of last week’s post, a few post-scripts: The Times finally assigned a review of the Colony’s Grace & Glorie, a couple of hours after I noted in my post that it had yet to be assigned. The review appeared today, in the production’s final weekend.
I gave a little too much credit to Bitter Lemons last week when I wrote that the Times database is increasingly unreliable, now that the Times isn’t reviewing such productions as International City Theatre’s A Shayna Maidel. I noted that a year from now, I might have to rely on Google or Bitter Lemons to discover that the ICT production ever happened. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until a few days later that I took the time to look for links to A Shayna Maidel reviews on Bitter Lemons - and I couldn’t find any. Presumably Lemons-squeezer Colin Mitchell didn’t see three reviews of it, which is the minimum number he requires to post the links. But I’m sure I saw at least three reviews posted in the ICT lobby. If I’m going to rely on Bitter Lemons to offer easy access to reviews of major productions, may I suggest that Mitchell cast his review net just a little farther, especially for relatively distant shows?
Finally, let me juxtapose the Times’ long review of New York’s Merchant of Venice in Central Park last Saturday (the print version) with its non-coverage on the same weekend of L.A.’s closest equivalent - the Independent Shakespeare Company’s Othello, with its Equity-contracted cast, free admission, and a new venue at Griffith Park.
Why would the L.A. Times pay travel expenses to cover New York’s summer Shakespeare but not L.A.’s , when L.A.’s is only a few miles from the Times office? The editors couldn’t have been unaware of the production; the Times ran a news story about the company’s move on April 6. Could it be because Al Pacino was playing a leading role in Central Park, not Griffith Park? ISC, it’s time to call Robert DeNiro’s people about next summer…
To expand on the issue a touch, Don - the actors have also pointed out that when a theatre only has to hire two or three Equity actors out of each cast, those contracts aren’t given out impartially. They tend, generally, to go to lead actors, and to go to men a significant majority of the time. This puts actresses and character performers in a different frame of mind than leading men, as regards to the ‘number of contracts’ vs ‘keeping my union membership’ issue.
One idea, from some of those actors who do see AEA membership as a mark of professionalism, is to require Equity theatres to use ALL Equity actors, but to only require a few to be paid health/pension and the higher salaries of the contracts, as opposed to what the non-equity players currently get. (So - the financial cost to the producers remains the same.)
Some of the Equity players already have health insurance other ways, so that money could be given to a different actor with a ’smaller’ role, and more Equity actors would work more of the time, making Equity membership more valuable to the performers and the distinction between Equity and non-Equity houses more distinct.
Just one of many ideas currently coming out of the discussion in the theatre community.
Thanks, Doug. Those are interesting ideas worth exploring. I’m eager to hear what Equity might say about them.
In the eight years I have been running a mid-size Equity theatre I have watched hundreds of auditions, and I have learned not to expect much if the actor is out of his early 20s and doesn’t have AEA on his resume. The best actor for the role in the director’s estimation is always the one who is cast. In all this time, exactly one non-union actor has been cast in a major role (and he jumped on the opportunity to join the union). Professional stage actors are members of Actors’ Equity Association. Period.
About 10 years ago I was the assistant to Equity’s eastern region senior business representative for “developing theatres” who also oversaw a few national contracts (such as stock and outdoor theatre). His department’s goal was to encourage the growth of small theatres to advance from small contracts (such as showcase or special appearance) to small professional theatre (SPT) or other regionally-specific larger contracts (such as NEAT). At the same time, Equity was negotiating for larger pension & health payments from employers while also raising the bar for required accruals for actor qualification for participation in the plan. Many actors whose primary Equity employment came from only one or two small contracts a year (such as guest artist or special appearance) objected to their inability to qualify for health plan participation, but Equity was facing massive projected deficits within it’s pension and health funds without enacting such measures. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, Equity was seeing a major erosion in top-tier pension & health contributions as the number of non-Union tours grew at mid-market venues across the US (a trend which continues to this day).
As such, Equity is in a real bind regarding expanding lower-tier contractual opportunities without negating the protections central to organized labor. It literally cannot afford to weaken its protections in the interest of providing more lower-tier contracts. The real issue must lie at the employers’ feet, not labor’s. Accordingly, LASA’s recent roundtables regarding the 99-seat plan suggests an alternative: theatrical service organizations acting as facilitators between actor/laborers and the theatre/employers. LASA is in a unique position to foster greater dialog between actors and theatres as LASA’s membership is balanced between individuals and institutions, while organizations such as TCG tend to be more biased towards institutions. Hopefully, when LASA hosts the national TCG conference in the near future, attention will be paid to LASA’s role in the 99-seat plan process, as that might suggest strategies for the equity-value of Equity contracts as an essential (not optional) component of professional theatre.
Re: Doug’s comment that these contracts go to leading men a significant portion of the time. This is not strictly correct, and I would have to see a statistical analysis proving this. Depending on the ages of the leading characters, it is much easier to find younger non-union actors than older non-union character actors. By the time one reaches a certain age, one has either gone on to other things or joined the union. I have been the recipient of such a contract, where the leads were non-union and all the character parts were played by union actors. Actors like to bitch and moan about every aspect of this business, especially hiring. But when it comes right down to it, talent will out, and those who stick to it will join the unions in order to advance their careers. I have known people in smaller markets to give up their union status, but they had a very secure set of employers, and did not do any film, TV or commercials.
As to having some Equity actors receive pension and health, and others not, I cannot speak for certain, but I would think this would be a violation of collective bargaining agreements. You would need to have two separate contracts as you have in musicals - a principal and a chorus contract. This would be a minefield and an administrative headache for an already beleaguered mid-size theatre market.
I certainly agree with you whole heartedly about naming names in theatre reviews. I think reviewers should definitely say whether it is an Equity production or not or how much of it is Equity.
As for reviewing out of town theatre instead of local productions, I am constantly astonished at the amount of reviews for these shows. I’m not going to San Diego or New York to see shows. I want to know what is going on in my town, and what I can do with my weekend, right here. If the Times wants to do a yearly roundup of theatre elsewhere, fine. But as it is, reviewing all these other shows smacks of condescension by the paper, as in, “You know LA is still not a good enough theatre town to compete with (fill in the blank).” Ridiculous.
Thanks for covering this Don. I think AEA definitely matters, it has made all the difference for our company. Yes, the budget is much larger but we have attracted more funding because we pay artists and provide health and pension benefits.
I don’t think LA will ever see a stronger mid-size presence unless the 99-seat deal is re-structured. I can see the advantage to the 99 seat plan but as a producer I like it less and less. There is a distinct advantage to having actors under contract, for one thing they are obliged to turn up to rehearsal when called… on time!
The LA Times has still to send a reviewer to see us at Griffith Park. I’m very disheartened by this, it is not for want of trying on our part. With theatres closing and seasons cancelled I would have thought the festival would have appealed as a glimmer of hope in troubled times. The LA Times have been incredible supportive to us in the past, always reviewing our shows as soon as they open. It is beginning to look possible that we may receive no review at all for Othello - such a pity as I believe it is one of the best things we have ever produced… certainly the most expensive.
Lastly, do you have contact info for this Robert DeNiro chap? Does he do theatre?
Yep. Missed that one, Don. But seeing as it’s me and me only gathering hundreds of reviews for hundreds of productions and seeing as I’m not making a living through the site (yet) and have to pay my bills with other work and seeing as I also have a one year old child to tend to - I don’t feel so bad. Yup, excuse, but pretty damn good ones.
Every once in a while a show gets missed. Personally, I think we’re doing a helluva good job. And over the last two years we’ve gathered quite a historical record for others to use.
But as always - thanks for the mention!
Am loving this discussion! I’m a producer who also uses Equity contracts, for all the same reasons that have been mentioned above. It’s an interesting idea to include this information in press releases, etc, and heartening to hear that it actually might still matter when it comes to assigning reviewers. (By the way, we’re starting our 5th season and still haven’t been reviewed…)
The FCLO Music theatre in Fullerton is considered one of the largest regional theatres in the Los Angeles basin. The Times has reviewed only two of its shows over the past several years, and none since the new Entertainment Editor arrived. We have a formal contract with Actors Equity and regularly use actors with Broadway credits (we have six of them on stage now in our production of “Ring of fire”), so apparently that is not their criteria,and I have no idea what it is. Griff Duncan, Producer.