AT ISSUE : What’s at Stake in Waiver Proposal?

A controversy over the proposed restructuring of Equity Waiver Theater in Los Angeles will come to a head over the weekend in balloting by 8,000 local Equity members.

The dispute focuses on Actors’ Equity Assn.’s 16-year-old Waiver Plan, under which the union waives certain rules, but not its jurisdiction, in theaters with fewer than 100 seats and where actors rarely get paid, but where their work can be showcased.

The situation surfaced 13 days ago when the union’s Western Advisory Board mailed a referendum to its 8,000 Los Angeles area members seeking approval of a 12-page proposal for a new plan that would restructure the Waiver, requiring, among other things, that actors be paid $5 to $14 per performance. The new plan would also regulate insurance, complimentary tickets, safe and sanitary conditions, scheduling, casting and numerous other items.

At issue is the shape of theater in Los Angeles, the only city in the country that has a Waiver plan. It was developed in 1972 to circumvent unenforceable workshop rules and was designed to give the actor greater creative freedom. Over the years, some Waiver theaters, such as the Cast, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Back Alley, became institutionalized, and the union grew concerned that the original plan was being distorted.

Deadline for the vote on the new plan is Sunday.

Pros:

Those favoring the plan hail it as an overdue step to professionalize local theater.

Equity officials and actors alike point to Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco, cities without Waiver, where there is less yet, they say, in some ways, a stronger theater. They also point out that in 16 years, the Los Angeles Theatre Center is the only contract house to have sprung from a Waiver theater.

“We need to create more work weeks for members,” said Western advisory board spokesman Lev Mailer. “We want theater to grow. This is a way to stimulate it. Proliferation of mediocre Waiver is a guarantee of stagnation.”

“I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 10 years and haven’t had a day of paying work on the stage,” said actor Troy Evans, who travels to other cities to work on stage. “The reason is there is none to be had. And when someone tries to put on a play in a medium-sized house at great expense, they’re competing with 150 other producers who don’t have to pay their help,” he added, voicing a conviction held by others that reducing competition for the entertainment dollar will foster more professional theater in Los Angeles.

Cons:

Those opposed to the new plan claim that it will kill Waiver theaters.

They credit the Waiver with fostering unprecedented growth in the last decade. They contend that there is no money to be made in Waiver theater and see the proposal as a death sentence.

“They’re trying to kill the Waiver by proposing a plan I can’t live with,” said the Odyssey’s Ron Sossi. “I either go non-Equity or I go out of business.”

Waiver theater operators like Sossi, who developed “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial,” concur that adoption of the plan would spell the end of such large-cast experiments. They believe that the complexity and hidden costs, such as the need to maintain payroll departments and expanded insurance, could be be their undoing.

“I have never earned any money, not one cent, from any Equity-Waiver play I have produced or co-produced,” said Tim Robbins of the Actors Gang in an open letter. “I have come close, but I have found it is an impossible task.”

Some actors fear that the multiple regulations in the new plan could be as demoralizing locally as they claim the similar New York Showcase Code was to Off Off Broadway. They see the new rules as even more detrimental than the pre-1972 workshop rules that they say caused open defiance of union rules.

Resourcess:

Since March 21, when the new plan was announced by the board, the 40 or so Waiver theater operators and between 500 and 1,000 actors who support Waiver have mobilized against the plan. They have taken out ads in trade papers denouncing Equity’s action, held two informational rallies and twice picketed the Equity offices.

For its part, Equity’s Western advisory board is relying on the persuasive powers of its recommendation in a cover letter outlining the plan. It initiated the process without notice to the membership or to the Waiver theater operators committee in an attempt to avoid a confrontation. Said Equity’s Mailer: “We had to protect our position. We knew (the pro-Waiver people) wouldn’t like (the plan). If we gave them two weeks to shoot it down, it would not have been in our favor.”

Prospects:

If the proposal is rejected, Waiver theater will continue unchanged.

If the vast majority of actors who generally are uninvolved in Equity Waiver are persuaded to follow Equity’s recommendation, there is a strong possiblity that the proposed Actors’ 99-Seat Theatre Plan will be adopted. If so, the new plan would go into effect in six months. And if they sign the agreement, Equity Waiver theater operators would then become negotiating producers.

“I believe that even if the Waiver is retained, (this referendum) will have changed the shape of theater,” Mailer said. It sends a very strong message that will have raised everyone’s consciousness.”