‘Aida’ is on the road with Equity

Broadway and many touring shows almost went dark last summer in a dispute between producers and Actors’ Equity Assn. The biggest bone of contention was the contract governing tours.

A strike was averted only after both sides agreed to an “experimental” contract for musical tours that set up seven graduated tiers of compensation for actors, depending on a show’s perceived revenue potential.

The first tour to use the contract is underway. It’s Theater League’s production of “Aida,” which opened in Thousand Oaks last week and moves to Long Beach this week, Pasadena next week -- and then to five other cities as far east as in North Carolina. Theater League producer Mark Edelman says he couldn’t have afforded “Aida” without the new contract.

“Aida” is using the contract’s lowest tier. The actors are paid a minimum of $600 a week for rehearsals and performances, but they have the potential to earn a little more, depending on the show’s success. The wages are higher than on most nonunion tours, though hardly in the ballpark of full Broadway contracts. But the actors get more per-diem money and better health benefits than they would on a non-Equity tour.

Because of previous contractual restrictions, Edelman had never produced a tour that was on the road for more than five weeks. This tour is eight weeks. Because he has more time to amortize costs, he can afford a bigger production -- he mounted “Aida” for $350,000, more than twice what he has previously spent on a single show -- and the actors will get more work weeks.

He hopes “Aida” will be “a model for regularly producing shows in L.A. and then taking them on the road.”

“Aida” is the only tour scheduled to use the new contract so far, Equity executive director Alan Eisenberg says, but “we’re expecting much more activity for 2005-06.” The contract will be especially advantageous for “shows that haven’t received the highest plaudits on Broadway,” he predicts. And audiences will see “the finest, best talent.”

Even on the lowest tier of the contract? “Sure, there will be some young actors, but they’ll be age-appropriate for the roles,” he says. Tossing a barb at a recent non-Equity tour of “The Music Man,” he says that under this contract, “you won’t see ‘The Music Boy.’ ”