Theatre

Seth Jones
Actor

Hi everyone,

I'm not one for many comments on here but I have come across a problem I think seriously needs to be adressed.

My friend runs a SELF FUNDED theatre company. He and his girlfriend work five days a week and spend majority of their pay on creating quality theatre. Being self funded they are in no position to give up front fee's to actors. (they wish they could, and would if they had the chance but at this early stage of the company it is impossible! Especially after dishing out £3000 on a theatre, let alone costume etc.

They have recently been contacted by equity sayin they are breaking the law of NMW, although on ccp a profit share comes under "no pay".

Equity said it was posted on spotlight- which the company has not done!

The company never have people in rehearsals when not needed. It is also evening rehearsals understanding that actors need other jobs.
Being actors themselves they understand.

My point in short is equity is meant to be supporting "actors". How do you stay fresh if work isn't coming in? Create it yourself. That's what they do!

Fringe theatre is rarely upfront fee's . Profit share is a bonus that the company offers to HELP ACTORS t least cover there expenses.

Sorry about the rant, I just feel this is a problem to be adressed. I see loads of posts on here about actors NMW. I think we all wish that was available for every show. The reality for frige theatre it is not!

I hope everyone's well,

Seth


  • 11 years ago
  • 3,044
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Private User
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Seth, can I ask you to also put up this thread and question on the B.A.N Facebook page as well as here? I am certain you will get a better and more passionate, and informed debate from the many very experienced members there.......not taking away from CCP forum at all!! Or may I copy and paste the question there if you prefer? It really has been done before month in month out on here and usually goes around and around and around in circles...with everyone convinced they know the absolute law on NMW. In reality not even the HMRC know the law well enough to implement it. Its packed with grey areas.

I think you will find Equity say: If you are booking actors to be at specific rhsl's they are not volunteers...and therefore are workers ...which = NMW payment is due!!

It's a can of worms that's for sure....but I think you will get a far fruiter and a larger cross section of opinion 'n chat on the BAN forum!
Many very experienced actors have jumped ship from this forum due to the fees having to be paid in order to blog on here! BAN is free and packed with frank debate!!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/BritishActors.Net/


  • 11 years ago
  • 1
Nigel Peever
Actor

I'm not clear what you are saying I'm afraid.

Did Equity not accept that this was a profit share production and that all performers involved had agreed to perform for a share of those profits if any? Were the cast not satisfied that the ticket income was properly accounted for.

How did equity become involved? Was it following a complaint? In which case should not Equity be failing in their duty if they did not follow it up? Or was it as a result of the mysteriously placed Spotlight advert which presumably advertised the casting as no/low pay?

You friends are clearly putting a great deal of effort into these productions not to mention money. Is it not possible to structure their business model a little further on a more business orientated level whereby all of those involved(venue, actors, play writes, crew etc) get paid or take equal risks? It sounds like the cleaners who brush up in the auditorium are making more than the performers. Yes this means perhaps smaller casts, offsetting rehearsal time against number of performances/extra venues. Seeking outside funding, ensuring capacity audiences through effective publicity. Considerations over royalty payments by using new writers or very old writers. Etc etc etc. it's all budget magic! And if you budget properly beforehand you know what you need to do/find to stage the show.

This is after all a business and I don't feel any business should set out with the intention of making a loss. The business skills are as important as the artistic ones

I think its a little unfair to criticise equity for simply trying to ensure that actors get paid or at least treated fairly should they have agreed to work without pay. Or to criticise the national minimum wage law that is the only thing protecting our country from even more unscrupulous employers than already proliferate in major conglomerates bent on profits for the shareholders and CEO's

It sounds to me like your friend needs to get better deals on box office percentages with venues too rather than just handing them big fat cheques, that way they might actually be interested in selling the tickets. If they already have their fee why bother?

Obviously best of luck to them, it's wonderful that they are so philanthropic to throw their money at creating live theatre. But also unfair to think that only some people will be or deserve to be paid for their work.


  • 11 years ago
  • 2
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Trouble is, I don't think the NMW really works for actors...especially within Fringe and the like.

Its too ignored by too many actors and co's and too unclear to really impliment it clearly enough...with the volunteer loophole maximised more often than not.


  • 11 years ago
  • 3
charles delaney
Actor, Singer

That's the problem; It's not available generally for fringe!(NMW)
I would rather pay £15 for 3 hours acting workshop in Covent Garden once a week to keep my acting 'sharp' than do unpaid fringe!


  • 11 years ago
  • 4
Lee Ravitz
Actor

I think this is nothing more than a classic example of Equity attempting to 'do the right thing' by targeting the wrong company. Mark is absolutely correct to say that, as far as Equity are concerned, *any* company that is taking on actors who are not defined as 'volunteers' is considered, legally, to be contracting them as workers, and so the law states all workers should be being paid NMW in this scenario.

Equity *do* receive masses of continuous complaints from members that they wish their lot to be bettered at the lower end of the profession, and as there is no negotiating position for Equity to fall back on with companies who do not pay at rate, they have to rely on the leverage that comes with entitlement to NMW - it is the only leverage they have to try and force fairer payment for actors to emerge, since the loss of the closed shop.

However, this is not to say that most (even within Equity) consider it wise or fair to penalise the majority of graduate, start-up companies etc. for not being able to pay other than nominal or profit share rates. This was discussed in some detail on the lo/no pay working party, and the table split about equally between those who advocate that absolute regulation should be used to drive 'uneconomic' companies out of the market, and those who uphold the actor's right to select to work at whatever level of payment they personally choose, and for the fringe to be allowed to continue to flourish for the sake of innovating and promoting the honing of new talent.

Equity have stated that they hope to move towards defining a more precise legal ruling on the matter: and, again, the working party, under the urgings of the Industrial Officer, Stephen Spence, drew an important distinction between 'exploitative' companies and 'true profit share collaborations'. The working party recommendation was that these terms should be more stringently defined, and that 'collaborations' (i.e. those where all profits are to be split equally between contracting parties, both production staff and performers) are considered 'partnership agreements' in legal terms, and should *not* be subject to NMW issues. There will always be a grey area until matters are defined further in any situation where a small company is attempting to contract others on the basis that they will only receive profit after money is deducted in order to support the continued sustainability of the company. But Equity is totally inconsistent in this regard: many fringe production houses hold exactly the same concern - were they to be forced to pay NMW for all in-house productions, their work would be immediately rendered unsustainable. Equally, Equity is happy to support awards being made in its name to rising theatre companies that may never have paid their performers and so on.

Whenever the legal team is involved in a fit of determination, it is part of their job to contact all companies listed on assiduously kept databases who they know don't conform with payment. They will write requesting that the company should be paying NWM. While I am not wishing to advocate the idea that the letter is irrelevant, it is important to realise that Equity are sending it more in the hope that it will cause the company in question to start moving towards trying to accede with the demand. They tend to be mass mailed out, and you shouldn't think that this particular company has been singled out specifically. Equally, should there be ways of proving to Equity that the company does operate as a 'collaboration', then they will simmer down over the issue.

From the sound of things, I don't know why they are problematising something that is defined as 'profit share' work, wasn't advertising on Spotlight (at least recently), and isn't receiving government funding, however, so I can only assume someone somewhere is being overzealous in pursuit of mistaken information. You could always ring and have it out with them if you genuinely believe that there is no justification for certain claims made in the letter, and try and determine where the error's been made, or why, as Nigel suggested, Equity seem to feel they have cause to question company practice.

The main things to take away are that the letter is probably not intended to be overly specific, and many in the union would throughly agree with your position that, while the stance being taken is not ideal, nor is the company in question behaving unreasonably.

Equity have recently begun to emphasise a much more valid campaign: to ensure that *government subsidised* companies pay all actors who work with them, and I don't think any right thinking actor would dispute the sense of that. Trying to penalise companies that are self-supported in the first instance, and often developed from graduate or fledgling origins, is really a self-defeating policy...but the union remains uncertain how to better regulate the market. One possible solution might be just to define actors who work in fringe as 'volunteers', which would get past the legal issues: but how would that sit with our desire to be seen as professionals?


  • 11 years ago
  • 5
Lee Ravitz
Actor

As a final remark, it was pointed out to me privately by one of those who also sat on the working party that Equity has to make a distinction between whether it represents the interests of the 'employee' or the 'employer'. Naturally, as a union, it must prioritise 'employee' rights (such as entitlement to NMW) over and above the rights of the 'employer'. A large amount of jurisdictional confusion occurs when actors (who are, for the purposes of union membership, 'employees') transfer their interests to running their own companies at which point they become legal employers, and, in essence, from an Equity point of view, the union doesn't consider it's contradicting its support for its own members at the point at which it takes members to task for infringement of employment law when they are serving as employers, rather than employees!

Admitedly, there is a recognised issue that many e.g. graduate actors are encouraged to form their own companies as a means to generate work post drama school, forcing them into a position where they must wear 'two hats' in order to subsist, and Equity gets tangled in much legal difficulty at this juncture. At the working party, for instance, it was suggested that Equity might be well off to advertise 'best practice' models for running companies via the website (in order to try and improve the general structuring of companies as sustainable business models) but the officers ruled against this on the grounds that an employee led union cannot endorse the practice of employers.

It follows from this that truly collaborative ventures are exempted from the legal repercussions that Equity is so concerned with, because they do not entirely differentiate the employee/employer, do not therefore have to be subject to NMW regulations, and so on. In an ideal Equity setup, *all* new graduate work and so on would be collaborative in nature in order to maintain fringe development and actor participation without bringing the law into question: so long as a company works on the basis of employing outside talent, then, however honest the intentions, it is still liable to be called up by Equity on NMW breach from time to time.


  • 11 years ago
  • 6

£3000 is way over the top to spend on a fringe production in London. Spend £1500 and that leaves lots left over for the actors. SIMPLES!


  • 10 years ago
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Keith Hill
Actor

Harry: Do you know a London venue in which those figures would work?


  • 10 years ago
  • 8

I run one
We charge £495 per week to hire, last week we did own in house productions, we still charge ourselves £495 and 3 days rehearsal at £35 each. The play Joy Division had 7 female actresses who got £63 each profit share after all the costs for 6 shows, two of which were not full due to tube strike, but other nights full (We are 37 seats)
www.thelondontheatre.com

total cost £635


  • 10 years ago
  • 9
Keith Hill
Actor

Thanks, Harry, that's so good to now.


  • 10 years ago
  • 10
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