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Getting Acting Work - Catch-22?Dateline: 22nd October, 2000 For aspiring actors in the UK, getting work used to be a very definite Catch-22 situation: you couldn't get work unless you were a member of Equity, but you couldn't become a member of Equity unless you were working And for sull membership you had to have worked for forty weeks. There were ways around this, of course - otherwise no young actors would ever have got a start in the business - but it wasn't easy, and involved finding a company which had a spare "provisional" card available. These were memberships which Equity granted to certain companies to give new/young actors a chance to get started. The way many got started was to work for travelling YPT (Young People's Theatre) companies, that toured the country playing in schools. This was back-breaking, very hard work, but it was the way many actors started, getting in enough weeks to earn their full membership and then moving on to better things. There were other ways, too. A few friends of mine who were also good musicians and/or singers set themselves up as club entertainers (this was at the time when the Working Men's Clubs had entertainment on every night and so there was a big demand: now most just have acts at weekends) and joined the VAF (Variety Artistes Federation), which was part of Equity. Because Equity was trying to unionise the variety scene, admission to the VAF was much easier to obtain. They'd get the requisite number of contracts, join up, and just carry on their variety work until an acting job came along. A third way was to get a job as an ASM (Assistant Stage Manager) - this was before BECTU became the force it is now, and many backstage crew were Equity rather than BECTU members. The Current Situation In these post-Thatcher times, there is no longer a closed shop: getting work is not dependent upon Equity membership. However membership is still regarded as a sign that the actor has reached a certain level of skill in his craft and so now Equity makes it much easier for recognised drama school graduates to become union members. That's all well and good, of course, but getting into drama school is not easy. Talent will always (well, usually), make it but talent and the possession of sufficient money to be able to fund three years (around £9,000 a year in fees for many schools, plus living expenses) of training do not necessarily go hand in hand. The sight of a would-be actor (or dancer) having to go cap-in-hand around local businesses asking for sponsorship is all too frequent, and in economically deprived areas of the country is probably doomed to failure. What is worrying about this - and I speak here as one who teaches Drama at school level - is that a significant number of students are embarking on either BTEC or GNVQ courses in the Performing Arts at tertiary colleges (that is, for non-Brits, colleges which deal primarily - but not wholly - with students aged from 16 to 18 or 19), and they then find that they cannot afford to take the next step, even though they may have the talent to at least set foot on the professional ladder. Quite a few look towards amateur groups to help them develop their skills, but often (although not always) find that there is little scope for them, perhaps one production a year. It's worse for the girls, because, although there's almost always a shortage of men - particularly young men - in amateur groups, there's usually an excess of women. It's at this point that many a youngster's dreams of a theatre career come to an abrupt end. Not for everyone, however: some do try to help themselves. Our next page looks at some lads who weren't prepared to give up. NEXT >> Boyle Yer Stotts Articles Indices:
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