THEATER : O.C. Bid for 99-Seat Plan Is Stalled but Not Dead

If the subject were more serious, we’d call it Kafkaesque. But since it’s only theater we’ll merely call it strange.

A month ago, as previously reported, Actors’ Equity Assn. said it had decided to delay rather than deny a proposal to extend the union’s 99-Seat Plan to three small amateur theaters in Orange County.

Union spokesman Michael Van Duzer said Equity’s Western Regional Advisory Board wanted the idea investigated further. But shortly afterward, when the union informed the theaters about the board’s decision, “delay” somehow became “deny.”

For those who don’t know, the 99-Seat Plan entitles theaters in Los Angeles County with 99 seats or fewer to hire Equity professionals at meager wages ranging from $5 to $14 per performance.

The plan essentially has a twofold purpose: To “showcase” union members--most of whom are largely unemployed--in the hope of gaining union-scale jobs and to encourage the development of small theaters in the hope they’ll grow into larger ones capable of paying union wages.

So, when it comes to showcasing in Orange County, has the fat lady sung? Or was she just clearing her throat?

“I would say the fat lady hasn’t sung,” says Ken Freehill, who represents Equity’s Developing Theaters Committee. “The process may be stalled, but I don’t think it’s over. The board has denied the proposal currently . But that does not mean it’s necessarily a dead issue.”

Freehill, who’s been charged to do the investigating (and the negotiating), speaks of “other avenues” and “other channels” to achieve the goals originally set forth in last December’s proposal by the Alternative Repertory Theatre, the Way Off Broadway Playhouse and the Backstage Theatre.

“There are other, plausible ways that a request can be created and submitted,” he said in a telephone interview last week. “They might be beneficial to what the initial request was--with perhaps some variations.

“But until I talk to the theaters and get more specifics--their budgets, their long-range plans--I don’t know what those variations might be.”

True to Equity’s deep interest in the matter, he said, it is his “obligation to help these theaters take the next step, so they can use union actors within the confines of the standard contracts and, if necessary, create new confines.”

Oddly, though he’s in charge of the investigating and the negotiating, Freehill maintained that he can’t take the initiative and call the theaters. “I’m at a standstill,” he said. “They have to contact me.”

Nevertheless, ever helpful, Freehill points to the potential development of an unusual Small Theater Contract in Buffalo, N.Y., that might be something of a model for the Orange County.

As proposed in Buffalo--but not yet approved--it would allow 99-seat theaters to hire only one actor per production for as little as $125 per week.

That compares with the union minimum for Equity’s standard Small Theater Contract of $375 per week and a provision that at least 60% of the cast be Equity professionals.

The question is: How plausible is the Buffalo proposal for Orange County?

Since Freehill’s hands are tied, we put the question to Gary Christensen, co-founder of the 61-seat ART in Santa Ana.

“If we had to start paying somebody $125 a week, it would seriously hamper our budget,” he said. “By the time you add rehearsals to the run of the show, we’d be paying for 12 weeks. That would be $1,500, and on top of that you’d have to pay pension and health benefits.”

Christensen figures one Equity actor at the rate being proposed in Buffalo would end up costing ART a total of about $2,700. “That’s what we normally pay for an entire season’s worth of actors,” he said. (A total of 27 actors have appeared at $100 each--per production--in ART’s current three-play season.)

Indeed, if the union had allowed ART to implement the 99-Seat Plan, he said, that alone would have meant “just about doubling our budget.”

So what’s the next move for the three small county theaters that banded together in the hope of going professional?

“I think we’re going to have to play ball the union’s way,” Christensen said. “But because we came in talking about the 99-Seat Plan everybody got it in their head, ‘Oh, no. You can’t do it because it’s only for L.A.’

“I guess we’re going to have to knock on their door again and ask what kind of contract we can work out.”

It wouldn’t be too surprising if learning to play ball the Equity way takes years. Given the union’s phlegmatic negotiating style and the size of the ART budget--to say nothing of Way Off Broadway’s and Backstage’s--playing that game might even take forever.

Or maybe the union will just tell them to shuffle off to Buffalo.