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One Principle Out of the WindowDateline: 8th July, 2006Recently I have found myself being forced into the position of breaking one of my long-held principles. It's not something I do lightly - after all, what's the point of principles if you don't abide by them? - but it seemed like the lesser of two evils. I firmly believe that the labourer is worthy of his hire and that principle applies just as much in theatre as in any other walk of life, to actors, writers and directors as much as to plumbers, teachers and brain-surgeons. Thus I have always attempted to make sure that actors who have worked with me are paid at least Equity minimum. That's been reasonably easy to do when doing corporate or TIE work and, when it hasn't been possible, we've paid as close to it as we can get - and always with the prior agreement of the actors concerned. To set the scene, the company I have worked with for five years, KG Productions, has done nothing but corporate and education work because, to be honest, that's where the money is. There's not been a huge amount of work but it's kept the wolf from the door and we've managed to achieve a pretty good reputation locally. But we've become more and more frustrated because we want to do real theatre - modern, preferably new, plays which present us with a challenge (and, let's be honest, corporate work is not the most challenging work an actor or director can do), but we can't because of the financial risk involved. We also want to do plays with more than just three or four characters - mini-Monsterists? - but that's even more problematic because our corporate and TIE clients' budgets normally don't stretch that far: we've done one four and one six actor production in all that time; all the rest were three. We've got all sorts of support, including a venue offered on a very advantageous split. We've even got two plays (well, one and a future play really, because the second isn't yet written: it will be the first play of a internationally known novelist), which together will make up an evening of "real" theatre. All that's lacking is the money to underwrite it. It's not possible to get it from one of the funding organisations because all our track record is in non-theatre work and there are no generous angels living locally. It's a no-go! Unless - and this is where the abandoning of priciples comes in - unless we go for profit-share: pay the production expenses and share out the surplus. Not brilliant: we'll probably each come out with less per week than a supply teacher gets for a day, but at leats we'll get to do what we want to do, establish a reputation in "real" theatre and, possibly, make funders notice us for when we next want to do a project - and we've already got some ideas for future projects. And it's not just me thinking that way: it's me and eight actors. It's a joint decision -and I've been amazed at the enthusiasm. "At last!" one of the actors said to me. "I've been wanting something like this since I left drama school." Some weeks ago I asked readers of the BTG Newsletter (What? not a subscriber? It's free, so why not? Take a look!) for their experiences of this kind of work, and got this reply from one:
She added:
We are not alone! And a number of local professional actors I know take on parts for amateur companies, just to keep their hands in while they're not working. Most of my actors are quite young (late 20s/early 30s) and are still trying to establish themselves: they need good, challenging work to go on their CVs. We all need proof of how good we are. As a company we need a body of work behind us to impress funders. Do we just sit at home waiting by the phone and hope? Do we knock on funders' doors only to be told there's nothing for us? Or do we get off our backsides and try to do something about it? If we were trying to set up a widget making business, no bank would loan us money if we weren't prepared to put in our own. We're not making widgets, we're making theatre. We've got no money, but we have got talents, skills and time, so we're going to invest them. Hopefully in a couple of years' time we'll be able to pay Equity rates no problem, but if not, it won't be for lack of trying. So, one principle out of the window, and I'm really quite excited about it.
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