Unemployment, Low Pay Still a Big Part of the Actor’s Life

So you want to be an actor? Go for it. But first take a look at the statistics in the current issue of the Actors’ Equity newsletter, Equity News.

“EMPLOYMENT CONTINUES STRONG UPSWING” is the headline. That sounds hopeful, and the figures do show that members worked a total of 233,540 weeks during the 1988-89 theater season--the highest in the union’s history.

They also show that:

* Only 38% of the union’s 36,481 members worked at all during the year. Twenty years ago, when Equity had only $14,504 members, 69% of them found at least one job during the season.

* They worked only an average of 17 weeks. (A little better than the 1968-69 figure: 16.2 weeks.)

* Their average annual salary was only $9,858. (In 1968-69, it was $3,699.)

For comparison, the U.S. government pegs the poverty level for individuals at $5,778--for families at $11,611.

If you want to act, learn to type.

EBENEEZER, THOU HAST CONQUERED. As usual, “A Christmas Carol” wins the holiday play derby. American Theatre magazine’s December issue lists 25 resident theater productions of Dickens’ story from Maine to California, either in the original or in an update such as Ed Graczyk’s “A Country Christmas Carol” (the Players Theater, Columbus, Ohio).

Way back in the pack come O’Henry’s “Gift of the Magi,” Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” and Thornton Wilder’s “The Long Christmas Dinner.”

Fairy tales turn up in Milwaukee (“The Snow Queen,” Milwaukee Repertory Theatre) and Minneapolis (“Cinderella,” Minnesota Children’s Theatre). Chapel Hill, N.C., will see a non-musical version of “The Nutcracker” (PlayMakers Repertory Company). San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre will do “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” based on the old Little Nemo comic strip.

A few theaters will also remember whose birthday it is. El Teatro Campesino’s production of “La Pastorela” at San Juan Bautista shows the Holy Family trying to find lodgings. Romulus Linney’s “Sand Mountain” (Attic Theatre, Detroit) shows Jesus returning to Earth to share a jug with a mountain family.

Finally, the Indiana Repertory Theatre is offering something called “Christmas With Bernadette.” Hm.

IN QUOTES. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vermont) on the recent National Endowment for the Arts controversy: “The issue that nobody wants to talk about is that some day, if you vote to protect the NEA, somebody is going to run that 30-second spot and say: ‘Sen. So-and-So supports pornography.’ ”