Equity Renews Bid to Alter Waiver Plan

Old arguments never die. They only get louder.

Actors’ Equity Assn., the union of stage actors, has just fired another volley in its ongoing effort to restructure its 16-year-old Equity Waiver Plan (whereby Equity “waives” certain rules, though not its jurisdiction, in theaters of 99 seats or less), and the Waiver theater operators, who are the target, are not amused.

Eight representatives of the Equity Waiver Theatre Operators Committee (a group of 40 or so Waiver producers, some of whom are also members of Equity) met Monday with members of Equity’s Western Advisory Board.

Equity’s Michael Fox, who chaired the meeting, informed the operators that a referendum of Equity’s 8,000 Los Angeles members for proposed changes in the Waiver plan had been mailed out that morning. The new plan, renamed the Actors’ 99 Seat Theatre Plan and containing 12 pages of stringent new operational guidelines, was accompanied by a cover letter recommending approval and a ballot to be returned by April 3.

The announcement left the Waiver operators stunned and angry, not so much at the proposed changes (copies of which they were allowed to peruse but not take with them) as at the board’s handling of the situation.

They claimed they had been promised a series of meetings with board members to arrive at a workable plan and that Equity had deliberately stalled them, presenting them now with a fait accompli.

“We were sold down the river,” said Ron Sossi, an Equity member who also operates the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and who walked out of Monday’s meeting.

“Equity has just fired the first actual missile over the border,” said Ted Schmitt of the Cast, “as opposed to a declaration of war.”

Equity’s Fox said he regretted the reaction: “I don’t like confrontation, but the plan is 16 years old. One (Waiver) theater has gone LORT (the Los Angeles Theatre Center which is now a member of the League of Resident Theaters), another (the Odyssey) talks about going LORT and doesn’t. When San Francisco modified its Waiver (1982), people said it would mean the end of theater there, but the fact is work weeks went up in San Francisco in 1987.”

The new plan, which some operators say may put them out of business, proposes a series of tiered payments to the actors based on theater capacity and length of run; it places limitations on rehearsal weeks and hours; it requires pre-production statements of financial backing from producers, contributions to the Subsidiary Rights Trust Fund (in the case of original plays), and final statements of expenses to be delivered 10 days after a production closes.

In addition, it extensively regulates scheduling, casting procedures, safe and sanitary conditions, insurance, number of weekly performances, length of run, complimentary tickets, the taping of shows and the conversion to contract or other media productions.

“It’s not an elimination of the Waiver, it’s just more structured,” insisted Edward Weston, Equity’s Western regional director, who did not attend the Monday meeting and denied any breach of faith with the operators or any attempt to ram the plan through. But it’s the kind of restructuring the Waiver operators say will force them into doing less experimentation (the lifeblood of Waiver) and more commercial small cast shows (“One of the things we’d asked for,” Sossi said, “was that actor reimbursement be based on a percentage of the gross or everyone will be doing ‘Two for the Seesaw’ ”), if it doesn’t close them down altogether.

“They kept stalling while they were drafting this ,” said Equity member and operator Joe Stern who runs the Matrix Theatre but was not at Monday’s meeting. “It’s not just what came down. The whole thing was a manipulation.”

The union’s growing dissatisfaction with its own Waiver plan goes back to 1984 when complaints were first voiced about abuses in Waiver ranging from non-payment of actors to poor working conditions.

Operators were accused of having lost sight of the Waiver’s original purpose, which was simply to make it easier for actors to ply their craft away from union constraints. They were charged with having made the Waiver an end in itself at the expense of actors.

Operators acknowledged some self-regulation was in order, but countered that there was no money to be made in a theater of 99 seats and therefore no room for conscious exploitation. The acrimony peaked when Equity unveiled a plan to modify the Waiver by referendum, provoking heated debate within its own ranks.

At a general meeting in September, 1986, attended by more than 500 Equity members (unusually heavy attendance for such meetings), an overwhelming majority requested that no referendum be sent out until the Western Advisory Board had met with the Waiver operators to try to find a solution suitable to all. Informal talks with the operators committee were held by the board on three occasions, with the operators presenting a counter proposal in January 1987.

“We’d been told there were to be a series of discussions in good faith,” Sossi said. “They said they would get back to us after they digested the contents of our proposal. That was 15 months ago. Then today they call a meeting to tell us it’s all over.”

“Even if the plan were perfect,” echoed Barbara Beckley of the Waiver Colony Theatre (and a member of Equity), “the way they went about it was reprehensible. It was contemptuous of their own membership. There was nothing we could have done at that meeting. The referendum had already been mailed. And why give only 10 days to respond? It seems to me that the scenario here was to not give us time to mobilize.”

But Equity officials stand by their actions. Asked if Equity had not bypassed the wishes expressed at that September 1986, meeting by its own membership, Weston said: “They were neither bypassed nor ignored. We know what the members who come to meetings say; we don’t know what the rest of the membership feels.”

“I have a hard time with the impression that’s being presented that we were not acting in good faith,” said board member Rod Loomis, who took part in the earlier meetings with the Waiver operators. “We said we would possibly be meeting with them again. We did meet three times. They did submit their ideas.”

A major concern of pro-Waiver forces is that a majority of the 8,000 local members of Equity are not involved in Waiver and are being asked to make a decision that will affect the minority among them that is. While the issues and their ramifications remain complex, multiple and deadlocked, the Waiver operators were meeting Wednesday to decide what their next move should be.

Waiver operators have scheduled a protest demonstration in front of the Equity building at 6430 Sunset Blvd., starting at 1 p.m. Friday. An informational meeting for actors will be held at the Las Palmas Theatre Saturday at noon. The producers have also set up a hot line number: (213) 466-1767.