Actors' Equity Association and the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers have approved a new Off-Broadway contract that increases salaries and health insurance contributions.
"Salaries saw an increase, ranging from 6.5% to 8.2% for the life of the agreement," Equity noted in a press release issued last week. "There will be retroactive payments to Oct. 23, 2005, when the contract expired." The new pact runs through October 2009.
The Off-Broadway agreement covers Manhattan theatres with fewer than 500 seats that are not located in the "Broadway district." There are five categories, determined by seating capacity. Actors' minimum salaries under the new pact range from $580 a week (category A, 100-199 seats) to $872 a week (category E, 351-499 seats), according to Maria Somma, Equity's press liaison.
"Once again health rate contributions were an important issue and the talks resulted in a 37.6% increase in the low rate and a 42% increase in the high rate over four years," the union's press release stated. Somma added that those percentages translate into a weekly contribution by producers ranging from $147 in the first year to $181 in the fourth year for the low rate, and from $159 in the first year to $203 in the fourth year for the high rate.
The new contract also includes "greater flexibility in promotions, recording, and marketing; notification to Equity for all raked stages in excess of one-half inch; and the addition of language that prohibits inherently dangerous conditions," according to Equity. "Institutional theatres will now hold no fewer than four production-specific audition days in addition to three days of joint auditions."
The pact also includes improvements for stage managers, assistant stage managers (ASMs), and understudies. Somma said that in the first year the understudy increment will rise from $21 to $30 per week. There will also now be three days of training for replacement stage managers and assistant stage managers. And if an ASM is hired as an understudy for performances, a freestanding ASM will be required throughout rehearsals.
In addition, the rehearsal-schedule rule "was restructured to make it clearer," said Somma. The changes include the requirement that "during the last seven days preceding the first paid public performance, there is a required day off or a daylight day of rest."
The Off-Broadway contract accounted for 9,324 weeks of work for Equity members during the 2003-04 theatrical season, according to the union's latest annual report. That's 3.2% of members' total annual workweeks. Members earned $6.9 million under the pact, 2.4% of the membership's total earnings under Equity contracts.
