One of my favourite PT audience members sent me a thoughtful, inquisitive email, and I think our correspondence may be something worth sharing with other folks who may have questions about the practical challenges theatres and theatre artists are facing right now.
THINKING ABOUT HOW AND WHERE I WILL MAKE DONATIONS AT THIS TIME. PLEASE TELL ME:
ARE YOU OBLIGATED TO PAY THE ACTORS FOR THE FULL RUN OF BEST OF ENEMIES?
We are. Plus the stage manager, and a few remaining costs - settling up play royalties, truck rental to return set pieces and props, that’s mostly it.
WHAT ABOUT, SAY, THE ARTS CLUB 'DA KINK IN MA HAIR' WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO GO INTO REHEARSALS LATER THIS WEEK?
If they signed the contracts with their Equity actors before first rehearsal, they will have to pay a certain amount of the actors’ and stage manager’s salaries, I think maybe two weeks’ worth? But it’s common practice to sign those contracts on first day of rehearsal, so the Arts Club may have no legal, contractual obligation there. But for whatever loss of expected revenue the artists themselves will now face, they will just have to hope that the financial compensation the government is putting in place for self-employed workers will apply to freelance artists.
The artists collective who were putting together our next production, Love/Sick, will actually break even on what they’ve already had to spend on front-end costs to mount their show - IF most of the people who bought advance tickets turn their ticket purchases into donations, which PT will of course pass along to those artists. We’re still proceeding to move toward our mid-May production of Trip To Bountiful, and even if we end up having eventually to cancel it, we will pay the designers proportionately for the work they will have done by the time we cancel; the set designer has done much of her work, I’m meeting (remotely) with the music/sound designer and the costumer today, and that will mean we’ll be committing to pay at least a portion of their contracts regardless of what happens. We’ll keep moving resolutely toward that production, and incurring whatever costs are involved, until we reach the point where it’s evident the show cannot go on - in the hopes that we find a way, that the community finds a way, for shows to go on. And if we can’t produce Trip To Bountiful this spring, we’ll put it in next season, so that the actors who’ve already invested time in learning their lines won’t have wasted that work - and because I’m dead set on producing that show! And we have already guaranteed the Love/Sick artists that we WILL present their show as soon as the doors are open again.
As for the Pacific Theatre artists who were touring Kim’s Convenience - which may have the dubious distinction of being the first show in BC that had performances cancelled? - I’m not sure what their Arts Club contract involves. They may be guaranteed pay right through to the end of the run, even though it’s not going ahead, or they may only have been paid for a week or two of their remaining run. I need to look into that.
It may be that larger theatres like The Arts Club have cancellation insurance. I really hope they do, for their sake as well as the sake of the artists. But Pacific Theatre doesn’t, and I’d be surprised if other smaller, indie theatres will have that protection in place.
I'M WORKING ON A NOVEL WAY TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO DONATE, AND THEN HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BROADCAST THE "CHALLENGE".
You are the best! Truly, the people in Pacific Theatre’s audience astonish me, time and time again.
Here's a link to the Pacific Theatre website, for anyone who wants to make an online donation.
