the day to day of a professional actor in the San Francisco Bay Area

mostly the day to day of a professional actor in the San Francisco Bay Area, but also the home of the Counting Actors Project

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

New Home for Counting Actors

As of this month's post, the monthly report from the Counting Actors project moves to the Works by Women San Francisco blog.  March's post is linked below.

Works by Women San Francisco is dedicated to increasing the visibility of women theater artists in the region, through monthly meetup events (which I co-host) and a blog/website full of news, resources, perspective essays and more.  It is a definite site to bookmark, follow and check in on regularly if you are a female theater artist, or want to support theater made by women.

I'm thrilled to be sharing the Counting Actors project there.  Moving a virtual home has some of the same bumps as moving a real one.  We are in process of copying the archive to their site as well as streamlining the process for submitting show statistics.

In the meantime, please continue to submit using countingactors (at) gmail (dot) com, and the questions on this page.

Thank you so much to all who have supported the project so far!!  Here's to continued growth and a larger spotlight on gender representation issues in the region!!

Here's March's post!


Monday, February 3, 2014

Counting Actors January 2014

Eleven shows are included in this month's count, bringing the grand total to 363.  This project dates back to June 2011, and if you'd like to see past posts in the series, learn more about selection criteria for the project and/or how to contribute statistics to the project, please go here.

January's shows
Theatreworks/Silent Sky
Ross Valley Players/Journey's End
ACT/Major Barbara co-production with Theatre Calgary; 4 members of Canadian Equity included in union actor count, two of non-union actors in this production are ACT MFA 'Equity Interns'; understudies not included in this count are 1 male Equity member and 1 female ACT MFA 'Equity Intern'
Berkeley Rep/Man in a Case & Pianist of Willisden Lane Case: co-production with Big Dance Theater.  adapted and directed by credits are for 1 man and 1 woman who are both counted here as writer and director; the woman also credited as choreographer and man also included in the cast; male sound designer and male video designer also onstage during the performance, but not included here.  Pianist: script adapted by director from book by actor. Actor is trained musician, telling her mother's story. 
Alter Theater/The River Bride co-directed by two women
Custom Made/Pain and the Itch
Rhino/Road Show male director and male music director; 2 male writers one credited with book/lyrics and one credited w/music
BACT/Mercy Watson to the Rescue union actor working w/out contract on this show - was cast prior to joining and allowed to work this show, counted as non-Equity actor
Cutting Ball/Ubu Roi
Brisk Weather Productions/Pardon My Invasion! major plot device of this show is female character 'inhabited' by a man's ghost, so female actor plays both male and female

The Stats:
9 male directors, 5 female directors
8 male writers, 5 female writers
75 total actors, 40 men, 35 women
28 union actors, 47 non-union actors
16 union men, 12 union women
59 local actors, 16 non-local actors

Many audience members contributed stats this month, as well as actors from 3 casts, and 1 director! Thank you to Anne Hallinan, Kelly Ground, Evelyn Jean Pine, Dale Albright, Kathryn Wood and Marie Shell for submitting statistics. Again, if you're working on a show or see a show with performances in February, please share stats for that project.  I can also take stats early for shows that may not perform until March or later, and then include those stats with the appropriate month.

If you've read this far, take a few minutes to share these statistics with your theater loving friends, your fellow artists, and/or the artistic staff at your favorite theater company.  Many companies are deep in season planning mode, so it's a great time to share this info.

The February edition of this project will be published between March 1st and March 5th.


Thursday, January 2, 2014

Counting Actors December 2013

Nine shows to report on in this edition of Counting Actors.  For information about the project, to read past posts, and/or to learn how to make your own submission, please click here.  Counting Actors started in June 2011, and to date has counted 352 shows.

December's shows:
MTC/Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol (F actors played mostly male characters; non-union f actor counted below replaced union f actor who left production due to injury)
Aurora/Bright New Boise
Shotgun Players/Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness (1 male actor played both male and female characters)
San Jose Rep/The Snow Queen (m director, f music director, 2m, 1 f team for book/music/lyrics - 1m,1f book, all 3 lyrics, 2m music.  And, 1 of these two men is also director of show)
Off-Broadway West/The Weir
Golden Thread/Urge for Going
Indra's Net/QED
Custom Made/Peter/Wendy (director and writer/adapter are same person)
SF Playhouse/Storefront Church (male union understudy not included in count)

The Stats:
7 male directors, 3 female directors
9 male writers, 2 female writers
50 total actors,  28 male, 22 female
29 union actors, 21 non-union actors
20 union men, 9 union women
45 local actors, 5 non-local actors

This month's contributors include audience members, cast members and directors of shows.  Thank you to Lizzie Calogero, Elissa Beth Stebbins, Kendra Oberhauser and Evren Odcikin for sharing stats with the project.  If you're working on a show or see a show with performances in January, please share show stats with the project!  Details on how to do that are here.

Please share these stats and use them to start conversations with the actors, directors, writers, artistic staff and other theater participants that you spend time with.  We're heading into the season of season planning, so now more than ever is time to talk about these numbers.

Stats for January 2014 will be posted between Feb 1st and Feb 5th.