Indie Caucus

I was at a meeting tonight of the Toronto Indie Caucus and I have to say that I was impressed by so many people there. Basically what they are working towards is a new agreement with C.A.E.A. that would bridge the gap between the Fringe Agreement and the Indie Agreement.
Forgive me if I get things a little wrong but I have to say that the whole deal for Indie producers is such a freaking mess that it takes a multi-tasking brain full concentration to try and find it's way through that whole Gordian Knot.

In a nutshell they are working to produce an agreement so that artist driven projects can get off the ground in both a fiscal and artistic way. They started working from a Toronto perspective but as things have evolved it looks like a national push will be next.

I don't have a list of all the people involved so I won't name names except to say that Jacoba Knappen and TAPA* have been fully there from the beginning and even though this is not an agreement that Obsidian would ever have an opportunity to work under I was pleased to support their initiative.

Making art can be so hard. And it is way hard when you are scratching pennies together. We have a system right now that encourages prevarication and that is just wrong. Wrong on so many levels but to me most wrong on the level that as artists we deal in truth. Without truth we have nothing more than facsimile. Without truth the work rings hollow and is easily dismissed. So to have to try and create truth from a place of lies is a soul destroying untenable place.

As the outreach to other theatrical communities around the country begins I will keep you up to date on this initiative because I believe it is one of the most vital things going on right now.

* Transparency Note: Edited to add that I am in my final year on the TAPA Board

Participation Rights

I was talking to a friend today and we chatted for a bit about the PGC & PACT negotiations that are ongoing. One of the issues she said was in regards to Participation Rights.

Here is a short extract from a much better and definitive article.

In recent years, a growing number of theatre companies have sought to obtain “participation rights” from playwrights who have been commissioned to write an original work or where the theatre is mounting the premiere production of a work.

So the deal basically is that if you produce a premiere production then you get a piece of the playwrights royalties for any subsequent productions for an agreed upon term. Just to be clear ...this is money that the playwright would have to give the original company out of their royalties. It is not paid for by the subsequent producing company.

I have heard this referred to a "tip of the hat" to the original company. Now this amount is somewhere in the range of 2% -5% of the playwrights royalties. If a basic guaranteed royalty is $2500 we are talking in the range of $50 - $125. If of course you have backed a show like The Drowsy Chaperone it could add up to huge dollars. But really so what.The vast majority of plays in this country don't even get a second production and the playwrights full financial return on several years work is $2500. In my mind if they are blessed with a second or third production they still haven't recovered anywhere near the effort and work they have invested. Also consider the fact that of all the salaries in a production the playwright is in the bottom third. Well into the bottom third. On most indie shows I know that the actors make way more than the playwright. 

For example in an F house the actors would be in the $700 range. $700 x 8 weeks = $5600. About 125% more than the playwright. So I say that arguing for participation rights is like spending time complaining that your change at Starbucks is a penny short.

If and when we can at least pay playwrights the equivalent to an actor and above then perhaps we can start to worry about getting another $100 from them down the road.

The Abilene Paradox

Whoa....Butts in Seats led me to a great management concept. Ok that sounds all kind of non-art related but it's not. 

It's about the Abilene Paradox

{The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and do not raise objections.} Now does any of that sound familiar? 

I am sure that there must be another name for a situation where someone does indeed speak up and is ignored. Suggestions?

Good / Road

Imagine a time when the bulk of acting work in this country was theatre based. Ok radio drama was big as well but theatre was king. To work in this country was to be able to get your Equity card as it was the passport to better pay and some safeguards against being stuck in Saskatchewan on a busted contract. You basically had to be offered the work at a “real” theatre to get the credit to get the card. Thus many actors of a certain age spent a season touring the back woods of the Prairies doing school tours and the pay off was that red and white piece of cardboard.

Time moves on and Tax Credit movies, MOW’s, tv series and films start to be the big dogs and of course the mainstay of the performers are from theatre transitioning over. To help both unions grow, a reciprocal agreement is made and basically an unholy alliance is formed. If you belong to one association and you want to work in the others jurisdiction you HAVE to join the other association. And so it started.

Things took a bit of a turn when in the spirit of helping disadvantaged performers ACTRA decided that if you were white you needed to earn 6 credits for membership. If you were non-white or disabled then you only needed 3. This reflected the reality of the day when non-white and disabled performers had substantially less work opportunities.

With the development of fast internet technologies and shortened time lines for auditions Equity creates the e-drive to facilitate the dissemination of work related opportunities for its members. They decide, in their wisdom, that in the spirit of colour blind egalitarianism Equity would have the right to remove any reference to ethnicity, age or body type so that there would be an even playing field.

Which brings us today to the perfect storm. Consider this real life example. It is not a solitary one by any means. 

A young actor of brownish hue graduates from high school with one theatre production under their belt. They get an agent, land a couple of commercials and a small day player part in a series. Under the ACTRA rules they now join and become a full member.
A theatre company looking for a young actor of brownish hue has a perfect role for this actor and upon offering them a moderate part in their play now find out that the reciprocal agreement kicks in and the actor has to join Equity. Their agent says no way are we paying for that so the theatre company has no option but to pay the membership fee for that artist.
After a successful run of the play this actor is now a member of Equity and they have no, repeat, no training. Nonetheless they sign on to the e-drive to see what else is out there and lo and behold not a single job opportunity shows up that says that they are looking for brownish hued type folks.

Road, meet good intentions.

The actor now is locked into the associations and their opportunities for non-union work have vanished. This scenario particularly strikes the brown sectors. When a few actors in those communities get their ACTRA card and then they get to do the reciprocal dance all of a sudden they find themselves being restricted from even working with their own theatre companies. Their company's outreach and development opportunities are thwarted, since by rights, the artist should now always be working in jurisdiction and they can’t afford that. All the good intentions have in fact created a situation that retards the growth of non-white performers/theatres and communities.

And so…what’s to be done?

Stay tuned C.T.A. Part 3

C.T.A. Part 1

Or should I join Equity or not. Well that is the question for many new actors coming into the business. And sometimes one even has a choice about it but often, due to an interesting set of alliances, there are no choices.

First some background. Many times we talk of getting or signing an Equity contract. And indeed there are actual Equity contracts. The Independent Artists Projects Policy, Small Scale Theatre Addendum or Guest Artist Policy contracts are a few examples. The main agreement is the Canadian Theatre Agreement that is negotiated every three years by P.A.C.T {Professional Association of Canadian Theatres} and Equity {Canadian Actors Equity Association}. If you have your copy of the CTA handy take a look at the back cover and see how the word “Professional” is misspelled. Simple typo or editorial commentary? Who knows.

Most of the venued companies in the country are PACT members and therefore operate under the CTA. And so since this is a negotiated agreement we should stop skewing our view of it and properly call it a CTA contract. That way the praise or blame for what is in there can be evenly distributed.

Once you willingly or forcibly join Equity you can never really leave. Until it was changed a few years back Equity used your S.I.N. as your RRSP Contribution number. So theoretically if you resigned they would have to cancel your RRSP which would in effect stop them ever using your S.I.N. again as an identifier if you ever re-joined. I’m not sure the S.I.N. was ever intended to be used in such a way but there you have it. I think that then a decision was made that even if you resigned you could not completely collapse your RRSP. 10% always had to be left in. That way it stayed open, your S.I.N was still linked and operational and you were still an Equity member. Thus whatever your life choices were after that you were still supposed to operate under the rules of the organization. Real life Hotel California. 

In recent years the S.I.N. was de-linked and everyone was issued an Equity# but I am still not sure if you can withdraw 100% of your RRSP upon resigning.

Once you have joined Equity as a full member your work choices both broaden and diminish. They broaden because there are all those wonderful PACT houses that you are now available to work in. And diminish because if, for example, you fit into the definition of culturally diverse then your opportunities for work just dropped.

More on this in C.T.A. Part 2