The Authoritative History Of Los Angeles Theater, Chapter 7

In the mid-1980s, professional theater was sabotaged in Los Angeles by actors willing to work for nothing, in order to do their art. Larger and mid-size theaters fell like dominoes because all the actors in town gravitated toward these 99-seat voids of financial opportunity and nobody, nobody would accept Equity contracts from the forlorn mid-size and larger theaters that went begging for local actors to pay a living wage to.

It was a terrible plague and it lasted 30 years, until a lobbying group called Re-Imagine L.A. Theater had the good sense to start asking some hard questions that swiftly led to the demise of the Plan. This was a good thing, because 99-seat theaters had been sucking the life out of the larger theaters that pay a minimum wage.

Remembers producer Dwayne Phallusia, Board President of the ill-fated 2,100 Shubert Theatre in Century City, “We just couldn’t make a go of it with touring Broadway musicals, first because all the talent from across the country was so reluctant to perform in Los Angeles, hell they didn’t even want to visit Los Angeles, because it was so ugly and so dangerous, and then of course there was the odious influence of the film and television industries that were such a repellant to top-line talent. But our biggest impediment, what really crushed us, was the 99-Seat Theater Plan, allowing producers to swim in piles cash ‘built on the tears of actors’ dreams’ — (I quote producer Gregory Crafts, but maybe he was being sarcastic, I was never good with satire.)

“Thousands of actors worked happily for nothing. Some of them unhappily. But they didn’t want to work at the Shubert. That’s what was so incredible. We couldn’t even get them to audition! They wouldn’t come from around the country, and local actors were too busy working for nothing in 99-seat theaters. That’s why Equity finally capitulated and later allowed touring musicals in big theaters to cut actors’ salaries to below Equity rates, even though there’s no cap on ticket prices, like there was under the 99-Seat Plan. Some called this a double-standard. I just call it good business practice.” 

Meanwhile, L.A.’s audiences were pounding down 99-seat-theaters’ doors, because those seventeen people in L.A. who regularly attend the theater would rather see Peter Hall’s Animal Farm, with actors in tawdry animal costumes and masks performing in a walk-in-closet, than a bona fide musical with authentic animal costumes,  like Cats, performed on a real stage with a real grid, you know, like professionals.”

Equity was absolutely right in its conviction that the only hope for future minimum-wage employment of Equity actors in Los Angeles was to crush the 99-Seat Plan and, hopefully, cross your fingers and hope not to die, make room for the abundance of mid-size and larger theaters that will someday rush in to fill the void.

But that’s not the entire story. Never mind minimum wage: Former leaders from Re-Imagine L.A. Theater and Equity have been working with the Department of Justice in order to crack down on a decades-old human trafficking ring that still permeates Los Angeles theater. There’s now evidence that graduates of New York’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Yale Drama School and various training institutes in Chicago and Minneapolis have been smuggled across multiple state borders, blindfolded and handcuffed, their ID papers confiscated, and forced to work against their will as Equity slave actors in 99-seat Los Angeles theaters, such as Antaeus Company, Rogue Machine, The Fountain Theatre, Theatre @ Boston Court, and the Eclectic Company Theatre.

Says Equity slave-actor Priscilla Garthwait of Pittsburgh, was forced to play Lilly Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate in a “guest” production at the Odyssey Theatre for 375 consecutive performances that extended over two years. “I tried to leave, but they wouldn’t let me,” she says tearfully. “I begged, I threatened suicide, homicide, but they had my drivers’ license and my passport. What could I do? They said the only way out was to get cast in a mid-size theater. I auditioned for the 16 Equity roles that were available over those two years, but I didn’t get cast.”

Only after the show closed did the producers return Garthwait’s passport and drivers license. She presently lives in at Paradise Found, an Equity slave-actor recovery center in the San Gabriel mountains.

“In my dreams, I still hear Lilli’s song, ‘I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple’ playing over and over. It’s a living nightmare. It’s even worse than the way ‘It’s a Small World’ sticks in your head. . . I was brainwashed.” 

The scale of this problem is little known, but one city councilman has established a task force to rescue these actors from the clutches of these abusive 99-Seat Plan producers. DWP and Bureau of Street Maintenance employees are now on the alert to report to AEA and to the LAPD the secret locations of any suspected Equity slave-actor theaters.

Once the 99-Seat Plan was abolished, even against the loudly stated will of local union membership, city and county officials suddenly realized that theater enclaves in Hollywood and North Hollywood were suddenly ghost towns. All the related businesses (eateries, bars, prop and costume shops) had suddenly gone out of business. 

This is among the reasons that the collapse of the 99-Seat Plan was so short-lived. The actors swiftly unified around their stated goal to improve the Plan in a way that was legal and offered them the respect to do their art under terms that they they asked for, sort of like their sister union for screen actors, SAG-AFTRA, allowed for. Equity actors living in Los Angeles were relentless in their quest to continue having the opportunity “to make art for the love of the art” — as offensive and naive as that concept rings in the ears of professional theater practitioners who may not live or work in Los Angeles.

“Not on my watch,” said AEA regional councilor I. Grant Nix, from Equity’s New York office. “We’re giving them the opportunity to get paid minimum wage like professionals, or to sit home, like professionals. We’re here for our membership.”

But after 90% of its L.A. membership found itself sitting home a lot, the union eventually changed its tune. They had to: The union’s own survey showed that 60% of L.A. members working under the 99-Seat Plan were either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the Plan. The actors continued their lobbying efforts to do the work that feeds them artistically as well as financially. Their campaign started as an initially spontaneous but eventually well-organized initiative that few people at first had dreamed possible. One “Pro99” Facebook page collected over 4,000 supporters in 24-hours, despite Equity’s claim that only 1500 of its members participated in theaters using the 99-Seat Plan. Collectively, they were able to move audiences and, even harder, they were eventually able to move their union. That’s even tougher than moving the Hollywood Sign. 

Still, they did it, but that’s another chapter . . .

History book author, and current AEA Xerox technician, Bryan Blowme

Bryan Blowme, a disgruntled Equity employee works in the union’s Tempe, Arizona office. Mr. Blowme is the union’s Supervisor for Xerox Technologies, a job currently being phased out, for which Mr. Blowme has filed a grievance with his own union, Duplication Workers United, against the union that employs him, Actors’ Equity Association.

In the prior Notes from Arden, Bryan Blowme answers some difficult questions that were put to AEA.