AEA Says I've Sinned

Two days ago, I got this email:

I also got one of these – then a hard copy letter – in 2007, when I produced and acted in the east coast premiere of Jane Martin’s FLAGS Off-Broadway. (Weirdly, I haven’t received any in between, despite producing multiple shows I also acted in, which is the supposed trigger.)

In 2007, I was amused and horrified. Now, in the midst of the Waiver Wars, I’m just horrified.

Here’s my union saying, in effect, “Because you are an entrepreneurial sort, creating paying jobs for yourself and your colleagues, we no longer trust you to be an honest voice in our meetings.” Read the email again. It’s crazy: they claim that, because they value free speech, they should purposefully silence precisely those union members best positioned to talk about what it’s like to produce work, to employ each other, to transition from powerless interpretive artists to powerful generative ones. They believe that a union member – the moment he or she enacts the “sin” of producing work – becomes so much an enemy, instantly shares so little in common with other actors, that free and open dialogue is no longer possible in their presence.

My membership card will have asterisks on it, for crying out loud! I’m publicly shamed for taking my career into my own hands! (And, I repeat again: I’m not just taking my own career into my hands, I’ve generated paying jobs, with pension and health, for my fellow union members, including paying – in 99 seat LA theatre – above the required minimum in all of Firefly’s full LA productions.)

No wonder AEA can’t seem to wrap its mind around the entrepreneurial spirit that pervades LA theater.

My Two Cents in the Waiver Wars

Now that I got my ballot in the mail, I think it’s time to enter the fray of the Waiver Wars.

In the debates and discussions I’ve seen, I haven’t found many that lay out the math of the proposed changes. (Thanks to the inimitable Rob Nagle for making me aware of Jeff Marlow’s excellent example.)

So, here’s my attempt to lay out the financial impact of Actor's Equity Association's (AEA's) proposed changes on the per-cast-member cost of producing a play at a 99-seat-or-fewer venue with a ticket price of $25 or higher. I like evaluating on a per-cast-member basis because this allows AEA members to think personally about how this amount of money compares to how much they value having 99-seat theater, as it is now, as a creative outlet. In some ways, this is the specific question at hand for each voting member.

For the math below, we’ll assume you’ll rehearse each actor in your show for 36 hours per week over 4 weeks, inclusive of tech and dress rehearsals; that you’ll perform your show Thursday – Sunday nights for a 5-week run; and that each performance night will need 3 hours of each actors’ time, inclusive of arriving at the theatre 30 minutes before curtain.

This works out as follows.

Existing Code

Rehearsal fees paid each actor                           $0

Performance fees paid each actor                 $236

Total paid each actor in the show                 $236

Math: actors will earn ($11 per show x 4 shows per week x 4 weeks) + ($15 per show x 4 shows x 1 week), reflecting that actors’ fees go from $11 per show to $15 per show after 4 weeks.

Proposed New Code

Under today’s California minimum of wage $9 per hour, costs would be:

Rehearsal fees paid each actor                    $1,296

Performance fees paid each actor                 $540

Total paid each actor in the show              $1,836

As of January 1, 2016, California minimum wage will increase to $10 per hour, meaning:

Rehearsal fees paid each actor                    $1,440

Performance fees paid each actor                 $600

Total paid each actor in the show              $2,040

Math: Actors will earn ($9 per hour x 36 hours per week x 4 weeks of rehearsal) + ($9 per hour x  3 hours per night of performance x 4 shows per week x 5 week of the run). As of 1/1/16, the $9 will increase to $10 in the formula.

Thus, we arrive at a minimum increase in production costs of $1,600 per actor in a play produced prior to 1/1/16 and of $1,804 per actor after 1/1/16. (Many have rightly pointed out that the details emerging so far do not help us clarify if additional costs – like pension and health contributions, payroll taxes, and the like – will also be required, increasing this cost burden. Jeff Marlow does a good job of factoring them in to his fictional production, but I like looking at the most conservative cost increase, so we know our what our least likely impact is, giving AEA the benefit of the doubt.)

However you decide where you stand on this issue, use real dollar amounts as you think it through.

Now...

Personally, I’m opposed to the proposed changes. That said, I have found some rhetoric on the Vote No side extreme, especially when very wealthy people claim that theaters they support would not exist under the proposed new rules. We can see, above, that the costs are not so high that they literally close the doors of our most well-supported theaters. Certainly, some passionate supporters can float costs of this level.

Just as certainly, however, costs of this level would, indeed, force many beloved theaters to close and would force all LA theaters to do what too-many theaters in other cities must: avoid shows with large casts, avoid being able to include companies of actors in their aesthetic, and cut rehearsal time (limiting the adventurousness of what can be attempted). All of this would mean a significant loss of cultural value for Los Angeles, while only ensuring that a small number of people would earn wages that would still fail to provide a truly “professional” standard of living (to use the buzzword AEA repeatedly cites).

And, most importantly for my opposition to the proposed changes:

Evidence has shown me that it is actors ourselves who are producing this work, and I do not see how our own union can justify wanting to stop us from doing what we want to do. Quite the opposite, as any reader will know, I consider being an entrepreneurial artist a high calling, so I’d like to see our union find ways to support our ability to self-produce. (If AEA wants to stop all the 99-seat producers they claim are making money off our labor in LA, they are welcome to. I can point to perhaps one such person, but no more than that.)

and

I think it’s a very bad political move for a union to make rules it is incapable of enforcing, because doing so publicly emphasizes that union’s limitations. I do not see how AEA can stop a group of willing volunteers from volunteering, and the fact that the proposed new rules will lead to whole groups of member actors simply side-stepping AEA authority will be devastating for its future ability to forcefully negotiate with producers who are making real money in commercial theatre.

Guess I’ll mail that ballot now.