Hmm, this might be a better expression of what I was ranting about last night regarding Equity membership and this whole Blue Man Group dust-up.

Elisa C weighs in nicely with some examples of why it's offensive to describe unionized actors as "greedy", as Paul Denton at Ravishing Light so ignorantly proposed the other day.

Elisa comes from an honest space, since she was a working actor for a time. She knows what she's talking about!

And just so everyone knows: I don't belong to Equity because I'm not an actor. I hire actors: And I always prefer to hire union because of their higher level of professionalism and training.

Here's a highlight from Elisa C's post:

When I lived in New York there were plenty of actors who I thought of as successful. Actors doing Shakespeare in the Park with Joe Papp. Actors in long-running, stable Off-Broadway shows. Those actors all had "real" jobs too to make ends meet. Why? Because the first tier of Equity contract that actually provides a living wage is probably the Broadway Chorus contract and above. The Off-Broadway contract won't do it. The Special Production contract won't do it. Many regional and summer stock contracts don't really do it. Actors who make a ton of money? They represent the very tip-top <1% crowd. The vast majority of actors make bupkes. But they pay their dues (yes, the actors pay union dues, and pay a percentage of income over a certain threshold too) and take their Equity contracts that make bupkes...why?

Because the non-union contracts are even worse. And they don't pay into even the possibility of a pension or health plan. And they don't have any rules to prevent them from working you 4 straight hours without even a 10 minute break. And they don't put any reserve aside so they're able to give severance (or airfare home if out on tour) if a show closes early. And they have no channel by which a cast member can complain about unsafe conditions and actually have some leverage. [If you don't think it happens, it does. Years ago at AMT SJ a show was delayed because the Equity members got together and expressed their fear for their lives over some unstable set machinery!]

Technorati tags: Broadway Music Movie Musicals Musicals Blog Blogs Theater Theatre Entertainment