Actor's Inequity: On Austin Actors and Pay, by Katherine Catmull, Austin Chronicle, January 22, 2015
Actors' Inequity
The Cost of Art IV: The artists onstage in Austin aren't just not paid what they're worth, many aren't paid at all
By Katherine Catmull, Fri., Jan. 23, 2015
– Peter Brook, The Empty Space (1968)
For my first play in Austin, in 1984, I was paid $93 – about $210 in today's dollars. It was one-fourth of the ticket sales for our final performance of Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Three actors stood on our rented Hyde Park Theatre stage, sipping beers as the producer/director, who also acted in the show, counted cash into four equal piles. We felt rather pleased with ourselves. In those dark days, many producers didn't pay at all.
Flash forward 30 years. I've done more than 65 productions since then and been paid for all but one. I'm now married to that producer/director/actor, Ken Webster, who now runs Hyde Park Theatre and pays actors substantially more than $210 a show. These days, many more local producers pay than did then. We even have several Equity stage companies paying actors weekly salaries under union contracts with benefits.
And yet, to this day some producers don't pay a dime. And many actors tolerate that, far more than I realized before I started asking around for this article, which is part of the Chronicle series on "The Cost of Art." (See "Nowhere to Play," Jan. 24, 2014; "Park Benched," Mar. 28, 2014; and "Road to Freedom," July 25, 2014.) It asks the question: Does the money you pay for a ticket, whether $15, or $27, or $83, cover the costs of the production?
Hollow laughter. No, it does not. That ticket is heavily subsidized by actors – and other artists – working for little or nothing.
Money's always a sticky question. But in an unscientific survey, I asked 40 Austin actors the least and the most they'd been paid in the past five years (Equity contracts excluded), plus what they considered normal or average pay for a good-sized role in a show running 4-5 weeks. From the 22 replies I received, the median "lowest" fee was $50; the median highest $800 (several actors had at least once made thousands more, usually in touring shows). Median "normal"? $500.
The high and normal figures were about what I expected. What I did not expect was actor after actor saying they often – in several cases, more often than not – worked for nothing. One told of having to persuade a producer that sold-out houses and the cast's willingness to extend the run justified paying at least gas money. They got $45 apiece.
So you'll know just how much work this involves for an actor, the average non-Equity theatre production in Austin rehearses 5-8 weeks, 15-20 hours a week, then runs 12-16 performances. That's 75-160 hours of rehearsal and 50-75 hours in performance. A survey of 11 local producers confirmed those numbers as par for the course. (For budget reasons, Equity houses tend to rehearse less and have longer runs.)
Beyond the time at rehearsals and performances, actors also must learn lines, which can add 10, 20, or more hours of homework, depending on the size of the role (and, to be honest, the age of the actor). Personally, I aim for a $1,000 fee for a small-cast show, somewhat less if it's a large cast. If someone wants to pay me less than $500, I need pretty special circumstances. So best case – best case – I make minimum wage. Worst case ... oh, I don't want to think about it.
The Milk for Free
So why do actors work for little or nothing?
Easy answer: to work at all. Acting isn't like painting or writing, an art you can pursue in bedroom or coffeehouse. You can't even practice acting alone the way a musician can practice music. If you don't produce shows yourself, you have to get cast. You have to.
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