In Praise of Actors Getting Paid

There was a time when legitimate theater actors stood in the sun in the village square, threw down a hat and performed. Whatever happened to that concept? Nowadays in Los Angeles, the owner of the square takes the money, pays the hat maker, pays the light provider, pays somebody to count the money, and the actor, if he or she is lucky, gets a critic’s pat on the head before being told to get lost.

A long time ago in New York--it was 1913 to be precise--a bunch of actors got together and organized. Being children at heart, they said, “Just allow us to perform, let someone else do the other stuff, but let us be adequately paid, enough to support ourselves and our families in health. Treat us equitably.” And so they called this bold new idea Actors’ Equity Assn.

Everything went fine for many years, and then came movies, television and the California sun. Producers of the new technologies, realizing they wouldn’t be there without actors, held general auditions or dropped in on thriving workshops. Then in a kind of artistic gold rush, legit actors thronged West in the hopes they’d be seen, hired by the studios and make some real money. Some got frustrated. Most got bored.

In 1972, a referendum of legit professional union members living in L.A. County was forced upon Equity, and their right to work for free was born. “Waiver” had arrived, restricted only to 99 seats or less. Then along came the landlords who realized that there was nothing to stop them from advertising to the theater-loving public and charging for seats.

In 1988, after a big fight, shows in these boutiques were restricted to a maximum of 80 performances (10 weeks in professional theater terms, a respectable run). Some expense reimbursements to actors were required, and the code was grandly renamed the “99 Seat Theatre Plan.” But according to reports in Calendar (Nov. 5 and Jan. 28), Equity will consider lowering the number of these performances to 24. Trouble is, this is no solution; Equity is merely attempting to rearrange the deck-chairs.

No one wishes to deny professional stage actors the opportunity to work out. But at the expense of our fragile industry? This is showcase theater by another name, and it’s not community theater and the public should not be charged to attend it. Think about it. What would happen if an airline cut its overhead by not paying its labor, lowering its standards, discounting fares, and then flying planes? Obviously, several government and consumer agencies would put a stop to it.

So what’s the answer? Let the movie and television industry’s stars who use it, pay for it. A weekly salary to volunteer actors would scarcely make a dent in the stars’ cash flow. And have the folks at Universal, Disney, Paramount, NBC, CBS, ABC, et al who use showcases to breed ideas for writer-producers pay for it--they did it for child care, how about actor care? It is no longer 1972, and times have changed.

If Equity didn’t exist, theater conditions are such that we would have to invent it. It must never be forgotten that Actors’ Equity was constituted for the purposes of providing a livelihood for theater actors in a professional workplace. It is up to the ruling members of Equity to see that our principles are not now or ever compromised. The only thing that should be “free” in this, our precious but unregulated industry, is the marketplace. It behooves Equity to nurture the industry that pays its actors.