There’s a lot of work out there for non-professional actors, and it’s on the rise.
Quasi-professional theatre is exploding in Alberta and this trend is galling many full-time, professional actors, members of the acting union Equity.
But the threat these professional actors feel is illusory. They need not fear. In fact, professional actors themselves will see long-term benefits from this trend, if they don’t blow it today.
Two Jubilations Dinner Theatres (one in Calgary, one in Edmonton) are on a rapid upward trajectory. The six-year-old Edmonton Jubilations is growing steadily, and Calgary’s one-year-old Jubilations is already drawing crowds as large as Edmonton’s, selling more than 30,000 tickets in the past year, according to Jubilations representatives.
Similarly, in the small towns of Rosebud and Canmore there are successful theatrical operations, each drawing tens of thousands of patrons, especially tourists, to rural areas of Alberta for dinner-theatre experiences: the non-profit Rosebud Theatre (36,000 people last year) and the very new, for-profit Oh Canada, Eh? (last count, more than 10,000 booked for 2003) of Canmore.
That’s why the massive production of Miss Saigon that visited Edmonton and Calgary last month was no aberration. It drew good crowds and favourable reviews. Unhappily, it also raised the ire of professional actors because of its lack of Equity performers.
Those actors need to realize that thousands of Albertans are now accustomed to and appreciate non-Equity theatre, and they are willing to pay top dollar (upwards of $45 per ticket) for it.
Partly, it’s those hefty ticket prices that scare actors. They wonder who is pocketing all the proceeds if it is not the performers (the Vancouver Sun reported most Miss Saigon ensemble actors earn about half the Equity rate). They are afraid that their market power is eroding.
The Canadian Actors’ Equity Association (CAEA) sent out a release to its members that said Miss Saigon was a “rip-off” because prices were so high. But, in fact, compared to the Canadian Mirvish production of Miss Saigon, the prices were remarkably low. I was sitting in a $100 seat when I saw Miss Saigon in Toronto in 1994. Most tickets to the recent Alberta production were in the $65-$85 range.
If we add the costs of touring on to that Mirvish ticket, it would have been prohibitively expensive: well over $100.
That’s why Dan Sher, the executive producer of Big League Theatricals, Inc. of New York, which mounted the latest version of Miss Saigon here, had to come up with some novel ways to stage the show without incurring undue expense. And he did it; he brought a world-famous musical to Alberta that would never have seen the light of day in this province without an innovative business plan.
To accomplish this, he cut the cast to “only” 37 people, and hired almost all young people. He also set a hectic pace for them, with only one day between stops in each venue. The actors finish a Sunday night show in one place, travel Monday all day, and perform again on Tuesday evening in the next town, something forbidden under Equity rules (and questionable under Alberta employment standards).
It might sound like a cruel schedule, but the cast mostly comprises young, fresh university grads. As I researched this column, I was reminded of the days when I sang in a vocal quartet during the day, performed theatre at night, and still kept my weekend job dispatching customer service calls in the Calgary Herald’s circulation department from 6 a.m. until noon.
I’m confident that most of the protesting Equity actors started their careers as I did. If they’d think back to that time, as well as consider the economics from the producer side of the equation, they might not protest at all.
I am a member of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, although I have not been active in professional theatre since 1996. In the late 1980s, I got my start performing in semi-professional theatres, like the U of C’s summer stock company and the Glenmore Dinner Theatre. In both cases, my pay was meagre and the duties were onerous – I had to help strike sets and tour with little extra compensation for being out of town.
My payoff came in 1994 when I was being paid $1,000 US (for one week) to travel down to the United States with the Shaw Festival, of Niagara-on-the-Lake, earning an added $100 per day to cover my out-of-town expenses. In other words, I was paid well once I earned my way into Equity.
It’s difficult to convey to actors the economics for the producer, but it is important to do so. If the producers can’t experiment and grow, there will be fewer jobs for actors tomorrow. These producers are not just cultivating new live- theatre audiences – a significant plus – but the semi-professional companies today, like Pleiades Mystery Theatre, morph into the Equity companies of tomorrow, like Vertigo Mystery Theatre, which is debuting next month.
Even Sher told me that he would love to be running an Equity company, but it’s not economical in the markets he serves. His company started out 14 years ago taking theatre to the underserved small cities and large towns of the United States, and now he has the resources and expertise to mount shows in larger centres like Chicago and Vancouver.
But that does not mean he will always be a non-Equity producer. He admitted to me that if a show requires middle-aged or older characters, it’s difficult to find non-Equity performers – Miss Saigon, with its cast of soldiers and prostitutes, does not have this problem.
So, if Equity will avoid antagonizing this important producer, the chance of his company mounting fully professional (read “Equity”) gigs one day increases.
The live-acting profession is not large in Alberta. In fact, there are only about 400 Equity members in our province and about 200 work consistently in the entertainment business. There is room to grow, if they’re smart about managing it.
As Susan Wallace, executive director of Equity, told me, her members are split by a “crisis of policy”: about half want to relax the rules, while the others want to keep Equity the way it is, if not even more separate and exclusive.
The important thing for Equity to do is hold its head up high, ensuring current high standards and working conditions for its members.
