Counting Actors and the local/non-local issue

When I first envisioned the Counting Actors project, I added the question of whether actors were local or not partly because I was afraid that 'just' tracking gender wouldn't get enough people interested.

Fast forward just under two years, and it turns out many many people are interested in tracking gender of actors, writers and directors.  Theatre Bay Area magazine has even published an article about my findings, focused on the gender portion of this study.

In this post, I'm taking the exact same plays used for the TBA article, listed here, and looking at the numbers in regards to local and non-local hires.

I include 235 plays in this count, rather than the full 236.  There was one play that I couldn't find out what kind of union contract it had used, even after a conversation with the LA Equity office, who had to admit that the show had slipped through their fingers.

Here's what I found in table format, broken down by type of contract, with totals at the bottom.

Type of contract	Number of Plays (% of total)	Total actors (% of total)	Total union actors (% of total)	Total non-local actors (% of total)	Non-local actors as % of total actors	Non-local actors as % of union actors
No contract	58 (25%)	406 (22%)	0 (0%)	5 (3%)	1%	NA
BAPP	21 (9%)	122  (7%)	46 (7%)	1 (>1%)	>1%	2%
Contracts without health weeks	24 (10%)	227 (12%)	43 (6%)	6 (3%)	3%	14%
Contracts with health weeks	132 (56%)	1074 (59%)	588 (87%)	188 (94%)	18%	32%
TOTALS	235 (100%)	1829 (100%)	677 (100%)	200 (100%)	11%	29%

235 plays used 1829 actors, and 677 (37%)  of those actors were union members.  Of that same total, 200 actors or 11% of the total were non-local.  The line that probably holds the most interest for the union actors reading this is the line that breaks out contracts with health weeks.  Those 132 shows employed 1074 actors, 588 (55%) of them members of AEA.  188 of the actors working on those shows with the high level contracts were from out of town.  They made up 18% of the actors who worked on these shows, and 32% of the actors who worked on contracts with health weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Counting Actors: the 2nd 100 shows contracts with health weeks

To compare this with the first 100 shows that had contracts with weeks, please go here.  There's a definition of what 'health weeks' are, and why they're important, included in this post.

57 shows were produced by theaters with contracts that include health weeks (or 57%) of the total.

Those shows had:
39 male directors, 31 female directors (56%, 44%)
64 male writers, 22 female writers (74%, 26%)
443 actors
271 male actors, 172 female actors (61%, 39%)
260 union actors, 183 non-union actors (59%, 41%)
168 male union actors, 93 female union actors (65%, 35%)

358 local actors, and 83 non-local actors (1 of those non-local actors was a non-union actor) (19% non-local, 81% local)

The companies and shows were:
ACT/The Scottsboro Boys, Maple and Vine, Elektra, The Normal Heart and Play/Endgame
Aurora/The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Salomania, and Anatol
Berkeley Playhouse/Lucky Duck
Berkeley Rep/Emotional Creatures, Red, Chinglish and Black and Blue Boys, Broken Men
CalShakes/Hamlet, Tempest, Spunk and Blithe Spirit
CenterREP/The Underpants, Lucky Stiff, and Rumors
CentralWorks/Education of a Rake and The Richard the First Trilogy
Cutting Ball/The Strindberg Chamber Plays
Diablo Theater Company/Legally Blonde
Golden Thread/ReOrient 2012 Series A
Magic/Bruja, The Other Place, Any Given Day
Marin Shakes/The Liar, King John, Midsummer Night's Dream
Marin Theater Co/Othello, God of Carnage, Circle Mirror Transformation and Topdog/Underdog
Playground/Best of Playground 2012
Retrodome/Becoming Britney
San Jose Rep/The Understudy, Death of the Novel and Bill W and Doctor Bob
SF Playhouse/Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Reunion, A Behanding in Spokane and The Aliens
SF Shakes/Henry V
SF Mime Troupe/The Last Election
SJ Stage/Race and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Stanford Continuing Studies and Stanford Summer Theater/Miss Julie
TheatreFirst/Oleanna
TheatreWorks/Of Mice and Men, Wheelhouse, Upright Grand, Time Stands Still, and 33 Variations
Willows/Dolls House
Z Space & Word for Word/Stories from Sonoma Mountain

Counting Actors: the 2nd 100 shows contracts without health weeks

To compare this data to the exact same set for the first 100 shows, and learn what 'contracts without weeks' means, go here.

Please also take a look at the previous two posts in this series, which cover non-union shows, and BAPP agreement shows.  The next post will cover data for contracts with weeks.

There were 12 shows that fit this category (12%).

Those shows had:
4 male directors, 10 female directors (29%, 61%)
10 male writers, and 3 female writers (77%, 33%
131 total actors
78 male actors, 53 female actors (60%, 40%)
25 union actors and 106 non union actors (19%, 81%)
15 male union actors and 10 female union actors (60%, 40%)

There were 4 non-union, non-local actors in these shows and 126 local actors. (3% non-local, 97% local)

The companies and shows were:

AlterTheater/References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
Crowded Fire/The Hundred Flowers Project
Foolsfury/Port Out Starboard Home
Intersection for the Arts & Playwrights Foundation/Dogsbody
Livermore Shakespeare Festival/Hamlet and Merry Wives of Windsor
Porchlight/Our Country's Good
Shotgun/The Great Divide, Precious Little, Assassins, Voyage and Truffaldino Says No

Counting Actors: The 2nd 100 shows BAPP only

For a post looking at the same information for the first 100 shows, click here.   There's also a definition of the BAPP at the beginning of that post.

The previous post looked at non-union shows, and the next two posts will look at union contracts without and then with health weeks.

There were 11 BAPP shows in the 2nd 100, or 11% of the total shows.

These shows had:

6 male directors, 5 female directors (55%, 45%)
8 male writers, 4 female writers (66%, 33%)
60 total actors
22 male actors, 38 female actors (36%, 64%)
21 union actors, 39 non union actors (35%, 65%)
8 male union actors, 13 female union actors (38%, 62%)

All actors except 1 were local actors.  The non-local actor was also a non-union actor. That's 98% local, 2% non-local.

The companies and shows were:
Aluminous Collective/Dusk Rings a Bell
Back It Up Productions/Project:Lohan
BrickaBrack/Stalking Christopher Walken
Custom Made/The Play about the Baby
Diaspora Productions/And That's What Little Girls are Made of
Impact&Playground/Crevice
One Heart Productions/Angel of the Poor
Theater Rhino/100 Saints You Should Know
Ross Valley Players/Harmony in Hiding
Symmetry Theater/Emilie
Tides Theater/Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche

Mixed Relief: A benefit for The Actors Fund on July 23

I'm so excited to be playing one of my personal heroes, Hallie Flanagan, the head of the 1930's Federal Theater Project in this staged reading.  Mixed Relief is a play about government funding and women artists, and uses interview and verbatim text to tell its story.

The project is produced by the Bay Area Advisory Committee (BAAC) of Actors' Equity, as a benefit for The Actors' Fund.  It's also a featured event of Laborfest, the Bay Area's annual July programming commemorating the General Strike of 1934, and the history of organized labor in the Bay.

The reading will take place at the Lorraine Hansberry Theater on July 23 at 7:30pm.  Equity has a little more info here.

A Facebook invite to the event is here.  To reserve a seat, call 1-877- 232-1913 Box # 874, and leave a message.  


Hope to see you on the 23rd!

Counting Actors the first 100 shows: contracts with health weeks

Today's post focuses on stats from shows that use union contracts that include health weeks, which I defined in yesterday's post.

53 shows (or 53%) used contracts that offered health care weeks.

Those shows had:

30 male directors, 23 female directors (57% and 43%)
53 male writers, 10 female writers (84% and 16%)

409 total actors
242 men, 167 women (59% and 41%)
221 union actors, 188 non union actors (54% and 46%)
133 male union actors, 88 female union actors (60% and 40%)
342 local, 67 non local actors (84% and 16% of total actors, or 30% of union actors were non-local)

The shows were:
ACT/Humor Abuse, Scorched and Race
Aurora/Delicate Balance, Metamorphosis and Body Awareness
Berkeley Playhouse/Seussical and Pirates of Penzance
Berkeley Rep/Let me down easy, Wild Bride, Doctor in Spite of Himself and Ghost Light
CalShakes/Taming of the Shrew and Candida
California Conservatory Theater/Sleuth and Trip to Bountiful
Center Rep/Arms and the Man and Smokey Joe's Cafe
Central Works/Reduction in Force
Golden Thread/Night over Erzinga and Language Rooms
Jewel Theater/The House of Blue Leaves
Lorraine Hansberry/Almost Nothing/Day of Absence and Blue/Orange
Magic/Jesus in India, Annapurna, and Why We Have a Body
Marin Shakes/Tempest, Macbeth and Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged
Marin Theatre Company/Tiny Alice, Seven Guitars, A Steady Rain, Bellweather, Glass Menagerie
SF Shakes/Cymbeline
SF Playhouse/Becky Shaw, Period of Adjustment, Tigers Be Still
SF Mime Troupe/2012:The Musical
Shotgun Players/Phaedra, God's Plot and Road to Hades
San Jose Rep/Double Indemnity
Stanford Summer Theater/Old Times
TheatreWorks/Clementine in the Lower 9, Pitmen Painters, and Sense and Sensibility
The Jewish Theater/In the Maze of Our Own Lives
Willows/Light in the Piazza and Nunset Boulevard
Z Space & Pig Iron Theater/Chekhov Lizardbrain
Z Space & Word for Word/Food Stories

Counting Actors the first 100 shows: contracts without health weeks

Shows produced in the San Francisco Bay Area use a ton of different union contracts, ranging from the Modified Bay Area Theater (MBAT) contract through the League of Resident Theaters (LORT) contract.  Rather than break shows down by specific contract, it seemed like it would be easier to look at contracts that provide 'health weeks' and contracts that don't.

In order to qualify for Equity health insurance, an actor needs to have worked at theaters that offer 'health weeks' as part of their contract.  To get six months of health insurance, an actor needs to work 12 weeks out of the previous year, and to get a year of health insurance, an actor needs to work 20 weeks out of the previous year.

Today's post focuses on theaters that use contracts without health weeks.

There were 11 shows (11% of total)  that fit this category.

Those shows had:

2 male directors, 9 female directors (18% and 82%)
5 male writers, 7 female writers (42% and 58%)

87 total actors
46 men and 41 women (53% and 47%)
16 union actors and 71 non union actors (18% and 82%)
11 union men and 5 union women (69% and 31%)
85 local actors and 2 non-local actors (98% and 2% of total actors, or 13% of union actors were non-local)

These shows were:

TheatreFirst & Bootstrap Foundation/Hanging Georgia
Hapgood/Imaginary Love and Cherry Orchard
Custom Made/The Book of Liz
Crowded Fire/Sticky Time and Exit Pursued by a Bear
Shakespeare's Associates (Livermore Shakes)/Lend me a Tenor and Macbeth
Julia Morgan Project/Becoming Julia Morgan
City Lights/August:Osage County
AlterTheater/A Man, His Wife and Her Hat

Counting Actors: the first 100 shows BAPP only

In this post, I'm looking at the subset of Counting Actors data that features shows on the Bay Area Project Policy (or BAPP).  This Equity Code (not contract), "is primarily intended to give members of Actors' Equity Association the opportunity to present themselves as Actors and Stage Managers in limited run, low budget productions, as a showcase. Additionally, the BAPP may be used to provide short-term assistance to low budget Producers who demonstrate a commitment and an ability to develop into Equity contract
theatres."  (from actorsequity.org)

In other words, the BAPP allows producers to hire Equity members at a stipend only rate, provided they meet a list of conditions as laid out by Equity.

There were 8 BAPP shows in the first 100 (or 8%)

These 8 shows had:

3 male directors, 5 female directors (38% and 62%)
5 male writers, 3 female writers (62% and 38%)
48 total actors
25 male actors, 23 female actors (52% and 48%)
18 total union actors, 30 total non-union actors (38% and 62%)
10 male union actors, 8 female union actors (55% and 45%)


All actors were local actors

The shows and companies were:

Just Theater/Down and Little Dirt Road and The Internationalist
The Aluminous Collective/Blackbird
Sleepwalkers/The Nature Line
Parker Street Odditorium and Dirty Swan Projects Presents/QuatreVingtQuatre
Tides Theater/Waiting for Godot
Dragon Productions/Streetcar Named Desire
Symmetry Theater/Patience Worth

Counting Actors: the first 100 shows non-union only

This post is the first in a series that will break the first 100 shows of the Counting Actors project down by a few levels of Equity contract or code.

There are 28 shows from the project (or 28%) that have no union members in them at all.

These 28 shows had:

15 male directors, 16 female directors (48% and 52%)
21 male writers, 10 female writers (68% and 32%)

186 total actors (an average cast of 6.6 actors per show)
93 men, and 93 women (exactly 50/50)

All of these actors were local actors.

The non-union shows/companies are:

Theatre Rhino/Two Character Play
Palo Alto Players/Give 'em Hell Harry and Parade
Custom Made/The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, The Underpants and Little Brother

Town Hall/Picasso at the Lapin Agile
Pear Avenue Theatre/Fifth of July and Mauritius
Bay Area Children's Theater/Circus Adventure and The Magic School Bus, Live! Climate Challenge
CounterPulse/Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dionysus
Cutting Ball/Tontlawald, Pelleus and Melisande
No Nude Men/Ladies in Waiting
Impact/Chalk Boy, Of Dice and Men, Dissassembly, Titus Andronicus, Working for the Mouse
Expression Productions/True West
Dragon Productions/Sister Cities
Ianir Productions/Abigail Dreary
Wily West/Peaches En Regalia
Virago/A Taste of Honey
Ragged Wing/Open
Off Broadway West/Indulgences in a Louisville Harem
New Conservatory/The Pride

Negotiation: extra thoughts and questions

I know I still need to write about when and how, but here are some of the smaller thoughts that didn't seem to each need their own full post.

What are you bringing?  Think about what you might offer in addition to what you want.  You may have a mailing list, or a connection to a caterer, or a car that is appropriate for the 1970's time period of the indie film.  Something that you have that they need might help you get what you want.

Unions - if you're in one, they've already done a significant portion of the negotiating for you -  minimum salaries, size of dressing room, you name it.  If you're not in one, you should still go to the union websites and find the info about pay rates and contracts.  Start here for Actor's Equity.  Then look at the 'codes' and 'agreements'  Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) won't let you look at the full contracts, but you can see summaries and rate sheets here. AFTRA rates are here. 

With non-union on-camera projects and industrials, knowing union rates can help a lot with your negotiation.  The person making the industrial may not know a lot about what the rates are - starting from 50% of union rate as an offer on your end is often a good way to go.

Usage - with camera, voiceover and print, the question to ask is what are they using this for - where will it be shown and for how long.  Are they asking you to give them usage rights for a limited or an unlimited time?  For a limited or an unlimited geographic region?  web only? cable only? The fewer limits to usage, the more careful you need to be about taking on the project.