Fringe Pay Debate
Welcome to Aequitas’s first official blog!
This is where we will begin to talk about the fringe industry and what we face as a small theatre company. (Pardon the American spelling; our artistic director is American.)
The biggest issue in the fringe world right now is that of actors’ wages. Most companies operate on what is known as a profit-share system. This is something we have become part of a movement to stop. Let us present the arguments for both sides for you:
Many say that they are unable to operate on a budget that includes actors’ wages. They have to pay £3,000-£4,000 for the venue and fundraising more than £5,000 for a show is difficult; nearly impossible. That leaves almost nothing for props and sets etc, let alone wages. A fringe director was recently sued for operating on a profit share system and he said that his case wouldn’t change the industry (he was right in a way: many theatre companies still operate using this system). Critics of the movement to create fair wages for actors say that the art suffers because this system is too commercial and does not encourage artistic collaboration.
We here at Aequitas disagree. Yes, it has been an issue in the past: affording the venue costs and paying actors. We used the profit-share system for our first play in 2012, Black Sunday. But it didn’t sit right with us, and so we spent the next year and a half figuring out what we could do whilst paying our actors. This time around, we’ve been lucky enough to secure a great theatre: The Bread and Roses Theatre, in Clapham (www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk). They are a new space with wonderful people running it and are giving us a 50/50 box office split, which was previously next to impossible for a lesser known, smaller, newer company like us. And they aren’t the only venue doing this: Cog ArtSpace in Islington has also just opened and are also promoting work that pays the minimum wage. If more venues behaved like the Bread and Roses and Cog ArtSpace, then perhaps actors would be able to earn the minimum wage performing.
While venues like the Bread and Roses help the problem considerably, it’s also important that the production team focus on raising enough. We are currently fundraising and this is a big risk for us, since often to raise funds, you need to have the venue secured and the casting complete, yet you cannot do this without the capital. We did some market research on our Indiegogo campaign (http://igg.me/at/AequitasTheatre) and the overwhelming response was “why should your actors be paid when most actors work for free”? The idea was that we were commercializing fringe theatre, which could not work on a profit.
Now, let us be clear. We are not expecting a profit. We are not asking investors to invest money and expect a return (unless of course they invest in us over a period of five years or more and we turn into a proper business). When asking for money for this show, we are asking for support for the arts, something that has been systematically cut from governmental programs over the past ten (or more) years. Although there is still funding through the Arts Council, small, unknown theatre companies like us are generally not accepted for grants (it does happen, but it is quite rare and extremely competitive). We are hoping that we have some seed money for our next production, but if we don’t we are expecting to break even (like we did on Black Sunday, only this time with wages included in the budget). But contributors to crowdfunding campaigns and other donors need to realize that this is something to donate to. In the States, theatre companies are established as not-for-profit companies and are allowed to accept donations in the same way as a charity would. That is not quite the case here because the rules are tighter and there is no heading for us. We don’t fit in either a for-profit business model or a not-for-profit charitable one. And this is a part of the problem.
The last problem is in spending. Not only do people pay thousands for their venue (and only slightly less for their rehearsal venue), but they also spend too much on props and sets. Fringe theatre is not West End theatre. It should not have a big budget set or costumes or props. It should be very basic. With Black Sunday, we spent less than £100 on props and sets, with the same budget for costumes. Critics hated that point, saying it detracted from the production. But it was intentional because the nature of Fringe theatre is minimalist. The fringe industry as a whole (critics, producers, etc.) need to realize that sets and props for the fringe are LESS important than the people who perform the shows. Consequently, the least amount you can get away with spending on props and sets and costumes, the better you are spending your money and the more you can allocate to wages. Interestingly, the only people who seem to be able to extend their imagination to minimal props and sets (besides of course the actors who imbue the simplest objects with the meaning that helps imaginations) is the audience, who seems to be able to suspend their disbelief and accept that things are what the actors say they are.
We here at Aequitas do not believe that the collaborative and artistic nature has to be lost by encouraging fair and equal pay for actors. By contrast, we think that if you pay everyone fairly, you encourage collaboration and if you promote an ensemble environment in your rehearsals, that artistic element will only grow. Payments to actors will promote a more focused work ethic from those actors during rehearsal—that doesn’t have to exclude collaboration. We need to remember that while it’s all about the process (and that’s what we are promoting here: a fair and equal process), the audience will only come to see the result.
