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Some Truths from AEA, At Long Last
The Hard Answers to 12 Angry Questions
L.A.s 99-Seat Plan Committee forging a future that will improve but not decimate the Plan
It doesn’t exist in the Membership Rule, but the union reserves the right to change any rules at any time for any reason, as you have seen from current behavior.
2) It appears that under the New 99-Seat Theatre Agreement, that requires Equity actors/stage-managers to be paid at least minimum wage for rehearsals and performances, while employers pay into their Equity-contracted health coverage and retirement pensions, those actors may still leave any production at any time for better paying jobs of any kind — just as they can under the current 99-Seat Plan, for which they’re being paid token reimbursement stipends. So, hypothetically, let’s imagine the very realistic prospect of a producer into the third week of (very expensive, given the revenue potential in a 99-seat theater) rehearsals in what’s obviously a money-losing proposition, going into previews and the leading actor says, thanks for the generous employment but I’m out of here. I just got a TV role, rehearsals start tomorrow. It appears that this is simply a gamble that theater producers must take under the New 99-Seat Plan, or they must double cast all of their actors-stage-managers at double the (at least) minimum-wage cost. Can Equity please explain how this plan bolsters employment or artistic opportunities for its membership.
Equity is a trade union. Do you see “producers” cited anywhere in the Actors Equity Association logo? The union’s only concern is its membership – actors and stage managers — not the people who employ them. What part of “we don’t give a shit about producers” do you not understand?
3) Under the proposed Self-Produced Project Code and the L.A. Company Membership rule, do any of the actor health/safety protections of the current 99-Seat Plan exist? Are there any restrictions for rehearsal times/lengths/durations and for the number of permitted performances or for ticket-price caps to ensure that the membership is not exploited by unethical/amoral producers — even if they also happen to be Equity members?
The Self-Produced Project Code and the Los Angeles Company Membership Rule are non-contract permissions. Our members can set whatever terms they wish within those structures. Equity only asks that they don’t bother us when they realize that a producer has skipped town with all the money from the box office after six weeks of performances following four weeks of rehearsals, and that Obamacare won’t cover the broken legs they’ve suffered after they fell into the unlit orchestra pit. These actors said they wanted to continue collaborating with their peers for nothing, so fuck them. You get nothing for nothing. Shakespeare said that, or something like that, and he would know, because he wasn’t protected by Equity, and look what happened to him.
4) In the last two years, productions that premiered respectively at The Fountain Theatre, Theatre @ Boston Court and Rogue Machine (three companies that will be pressured to close or go non-Union under the New 99-Seat Plan) transferred to London’s West End or to Off-Broadway — the latter using U.S. Equity actors. How does compelling an untenable financial burden upon those 99-seat (or less) theaters, if they employ Equity actors, foster employment or artistic opportunities for the membership?
Can we be straight about this? How much money has Equity ever gotten from productions at The Fountain Theatre or Theatre @ Boston Court or Rogue Machine. We collect Equity actors’ dues whether or not they work there. What you’re really talking about is working on spec, a foolish gamble. Thank you, but not interested.
5) What is the purpose of, from April, 2015 (changed on Equity’s website from the Feb. 6 date in the mailed out docs), forbidding Equity actors from joining membership companies under the L.A. Membership Company Rule? Even without the rumored two-year expiration date, it would appear to serve the purpose of squeezing membership companies to death by attrition, to deny them the right to reinvigorate their companies with new Equity members and/or compel them to continue with new non-Union actors. Is that its intent?
Okay, you screwed that up: The companies have to have been “membership companies” as for Feb. 6, 2015, and not a day later, but those companies have until April 1, 2015 to let us know who those members are. As you can see, we’re fast-tracking this puppy. As for your other question regarding intent: duh. The rights to On Golden Pond will be available for the next 30 years. Might as well start memorizing your lines now.
6) How does denying 99-seat membership company opportunities to Equity members just arriving in L.A. foster employment and artistic opportunities?
How does incentivizing paying work deny them employment opportunities?
7) Does Equity foresee a flood of new mid-size/larger theaters to fill the void that will be left after the decimation of the smaller professional-standard theaters?
What are we, prophets? We’re creating a new standard for professional theater. With luck, Los Angeles may soon see the same kind of buzzing professional theatrical activity as here in Tempe, Arizona.
8) Does Equity hold smaller theaters responsible for the dearth of mid-size/larger theaters in the region, or for the lack of employing local talent at those theaters?
Yes. People willing to work for nothing gravitate towards those voids of opportunity, which leaves the paying theaters with their Equity contracts, begging for actors. I think the logic of this argument is unimpeachable.
9) Does Equity intend making the findings of last month’s survey public?
Not for the time being.
10) Why is the upcoming membership referendum non-binding (“advisory”)?
Really? Are you honestly asking that question? That is not a question, that is an editorial opinion, and we know the difference.
11) Have any of Equity’s sister unions (such as SAG) signed on to Equity’s proposal?
No comment.
12) At the last Equity membership meeting, there was extended discussion on making actor-remuneration proportional to a show’s budget, in order to avoid the possibility of actors being exploited by producers, and to protect producers operating on modest budgets from being priced out of existence. Is there any inclusion of that idea in Equity’s new proposals?
We are proposing a tiered system. Union members can work for whatever they want if they self-produce (without an established company) or under the L.A. Company Membership Rule, both without any benefits of an Equity contract. The bottom layer of the contracted tiered system is minimum wage. That’s where we start. That’s where the law obliges us to start. Of course, legally, non-profit companies operating with 501c3s can bring in volunteers, which can be reimbursed for expenses, which is how 99-Seat Plan has legally operated thus far. But it’s been 30 years, and we say the days of volunteering are over. The rest is silence.
