News travels quickly 'round the Rialto, and when the news is something of a bodice-ripper, it often travels twice as fast. And so it went last week when rumors began to circulate that Melissa Errico and Kelli O'Hara, who are co-starring opposite Tom Hewitt in the soon-to-open, Des McAnuff-directed Broadway tuner "Dracula," would appear nude in various scenes.
In a spate of stories that subsequently ran in print and online outlets, the truth emerged: Errico and O'Hara would indeed be nude in certain scenes and, curiously, would be nude at only certain performances. Matinees would be the exception, as producers aim to lure family audiences to a musical based on Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic thriller.
The question of onstage nudity -- and its implications for actors, financially and otherwise -- is largely addressed in the Production contract agreed to by Actors' Equity and the League of American Theatres and Producers. In a pair of phone calls with Back Stage, Maria Somma, press liaison for the union, said that actors or, more often, their agents usually negotiate higher pay rates when onstage nudity is called for. In the case of "Dracula," the fact that the actresses will appear nude in certain scenes only six performances a week, versus all eight performances a week, likely makes no difference in terms of how much more they will be paid.
"There's nothing different here than what's already in the [Production] contract," Somma said. "Whatever they have negotiated is what they have negotiated." Ditto, too, Somma says, their understudies. "Understudies will receive at least Equity minimum and their agent can -- and probably already has -- negotiated something higher for them because if they go on at any one of the six non-matinee performances, they will be nude as well."
It's important to note that higher pay rates aren't determined by how many performances per week an actor is nude, but simply the fact that he or she is nude at all. Somma hypothesized a situation in which an actor appears nude at only one performance a week: He or she would still have to agree to it, sign a nudity rider, and receive, if negotiated, additional compensation for the task.
And the nudity clause in the Production contract is quite comprehensive. For example, it says, "Nudity shall not be permitted at Principal Interviews" and "Nudity at Auditions (Principal and/or Chorus Auditions) shall not be permitted except with the express written permission of Actors' Equity...." And even with such permission, rigorous guidelines apply, and producers who breach the rules "shall be assessed damages of no less than one week's contractual salary for each violation of any of the provisions...."
During March and April, when "Dracula" was in preproduction, Back Stage published four casting notices; none at the time referred to onstage nudity. An Aug. 6 article on Playbill Online, meanwhile, reported that there had been "no full-company meeting or announcement about the matinee nudity issue," although the producers "sent a memo to group sales agents" alerting them of the artistic decision.
As for what Errico and O'Hara will earn weekly -- and how much more they will earn because they will be nude at certain performances -- Somma declined to comment. "That's negotiated between their agents and the show," she said.