Actor’s equity- “Im not a labrat” campaign
Actor’s equity- “Im not a labrat” campaign
Catsbroadwayfan
Stand-by Joined: 10/9/18
JSquared2
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/23/17
being.jeremiah
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#5Labrat
Posted: 11/13/18 at 5:28pmWhile part of me thinks they deserve a raise, people know that when you book a lab you won’t make that much. The production doesn’t have enough money to give the entire cast a raise. And while that it’s sad, it’s a lab. So Im going to have to say, I disagree with this.
Bwayfan292
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/17
BroadwayConcierge
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
massofmen
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/10/04
SomethingPeculiar
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/15/14
#9Labrat
Posted: 11/13/18 at 7:58pm
Bwayfan292 said: "Most labs don’t even pay, so Im not quite understanding the issue here since it’s just labs."
False – you might be thinking of readings, which are occasionally produced "off the record."
A Developmental Lab typically lasts several weeks at $1,000 per week, to develop a new work. It has become more popular than the Workshop agreement. For a Workshop agreement, "salaries are lower than standard Production rates in exchange for participation in a percentage of gross box office receipts and subsidiary rights."
Hamilton is the most notable recent example of a Lab dispute (though that was not just related to the Lab agreement, Off-Bway was a factor). Michael Bennett and John Breglio were instrumental in creating the Workshop contract in 1976 for A Chorus Line, which gave the original dancers a little piece of the profit for their contributions to the show.
My guess is if anything comes out of this, it will be a new type of developmental contract that replaces both the current Workshop and Lab agreements. Because the Lab contract is so attractive, few producers use the Workshop contract nowadays: they don't want to give away a % of Broadway royalties if they could just pay the participants $1000/wk up front. It could become this year's version of #FairnessForCasting.
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#10Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 5:07am
For those disagreeing, do YOU make the same money ELEVEN years later? I get approx 2% raise every year and am losing money since inflation is almost always more than that. To get no increases in 11 years is crazy.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
Loopin’theloop
Leading Actor Joined: 1/9/18
#11Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 6:50am
dramamama611 said: "For those disagreeing, do YOU make the same money ELEVEN years later? I get approx 2% raise every year and am losing money since inflation is almost always more than that. To get no increases in 11 years is crazy.
"
But people don’t work continuously for eleven years in this setting. A lab is an early developmental stage of a production process nobody is making a career from only doing labs.
Thst said, this is tricky. Developing a musical is a very, very expensive process and there is no underhanded or secretive behaviour in how payment for a lab is presented to an actor. Everyone goes in with their eyes open. If there isn’t a cost effective way for producers to try out new material then we are going to end up with even fewer artistic risks being taken in the search for new musicals. The fairest way is of course giving the actors a profit participation but if equity have made the lab agreement a reality, you can’t really blame producers for taking that option. I don’t know what a fairer but realistic option is...
#12Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 7:19am
Loopin’theloop said: "dramamama611 said: "For those disagreeing, do YOU make the same money ELEVEN years later? I get approx 2% raise every year and am losing money since inflation is almost always more than that. To get no increases in 11 years is crazy.
"But people don’t work continuously foreleven years in thissetting. A lab is an early developmental stage of a production process nobody is making a career from only doing labs.”
I have a second job that helps with a little extra money so that I’m not strictly living paycheck to paycheck. I’m sure plenty of actors take labs for similar reasons. I’ve gotten raises at that job, and I’ve only been there for four years. Just to keep pace with the cost of living actors should be making more money now than they were 11 years ago.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
#13Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 8:54am
I would be so much more supportive of this demand if they didn’t do this “I am not a lab rat” thing.” It plays into the negative image that Equity only continues to perpetuate about itself - that it is a bunch of angry, entitled brats who want more money than producers even have. I don’t know if that’s the case for this contract in particular, but the rhetoric doesn’t help.
I didn’t buy into their #equitystrong B.S. - I am eligible to join, but since I don’t live in NYC I have no reason to and will continue to refuse to until they get their act together and stop preventing their own members from getting work.
Loopin’theloop
Leading Actor Joined: 1/9/18
#14Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 9:04am
givesmevoice said: "Loopin’theloop said: "dramamama611 said: "For those disagreeing, do YOU make the same money ELEVEN years later? I get approx 2% raise every year and am losing money since inflation is almost always more than that. To get no increases in 11 years is crazy.
"But people don’t work continuously foreleven years in thissetting. A lab is an early developmental stage of a production process nobody is making a career from only doing labs.”
I have a second job that helps with a little extra money so that I’m not strictly living paycheck to paycheck. I’m sure plenty of actors take labs for similar reasons. I’ve gotten raises at that job, and I’ve only been there for four years. Just to keep pace with the cost of living actors should be making more money now than they were 11 years ago."
I agree that actors should be payed accordingly and nobody should be stuck in the same pay bracket for years to come whilst inflation and the cost of living are doing their thing. But what I mean is that nobody is making a living purely by going labs like this, it’s a very small part of an actors potentisl pool of work. Pay more for a run, absolutely but a lab is tricky because they aren’t easy to raise the money for in the first place.
I’m not saying that actors should be paid peanuts to develop someone’s work only to be replaced by Idina Mendel by the time it reaches production but we have to be realistic about what a lab costs and what it’s purpose is. If an artist is commissioned to paint a portrait, they start with a pencil sketch. That pencil sketch doesn’t cost anywhere near what the materials for an oil painting will. It wouldn’t make sense to do the first and last stage a the same cost. A lab is the same.
If it’s going to cost so much that it’s easier just to open the show cold, then that is what will happen. The producers will stop taking risks. They will open their show, based on a famous title out of town somewhere, with stars in the leads and hope they end up Broadway. We all now that’s not the way to create musicals. Once that ball is rolling is not easy to start making huge changes or experiment. And that’s not just in terms of the writing and staging. How many times has an unknown actor been employed for readings, workshops or labs with the knowledge that the producers intend on booking someone with marquee value for the show’s full production, only to knock the role out of the park and become so important in the process of the characters development that the producers and creates decide the role belongs to the original actor?
Actors are not a commodity, nobody deserves to treated like a cog in a giant machine but we need to be realistic about what this part of the process is, what it’s for and what it costs.
#15Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 10:18am
I actually think it's a pretty effective campaign. I hope they get the raise they deserve. I agree with dramamama611 - I would bet those who disagree here have had a raise in their current job(s) over the past 11 years.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
SomethingPeculiar
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/15/14
#16Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 11:15am
Another detail, from Broadway Briefing:
"The third point of negotiation is around rehearsals. When a show goes from a lab to a full production, actors allege that the lab itself has often been treated as rehearsal time, and therefore they don’t receive adequate time to prepare in the lead up to the full production."
#18Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 12:19pm
I think they are also trying to make the point that there is a little bit of a “Little Red Hen” situation going on. In many of these labs they hire the best actors because they know they will come up with large amounts of quality dialogue, bits and gags, and even how they are costumed (The Prom and School of Rock come to mind.)
If a show goes on to make millions and millions of dollars through Broadway, tours, regional theatre, licensing, etc. sometimes it is in no small part thanks to your contribution, and hundreds of people will forever be saying your jokes and dialogue. Shouldn’t they get compensated for it? And we are talking drop-in-the-bucket compensation compared to what the creatives and producers make.
Conversley, if you don’t participate in a lab, there is a great chance you will be left behind when that show goes to Broadway and producers take advantage knowing actors can’t afford to take that risk.
I don’t think producers are the enemy. They just need to find fair ground.
Sondheimite
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/14
#19Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 12:47pm
The Distinctive Baritone said: "I would be so much more supportive of this demand if they didn’t do this “I am not a lab rat” thing.” It plays into the negative image that Equity only continues to perpetuate about itself - that it is a bunch of angry, entitled brats who want more money than producers even have. I don’t know if that’s the case for this contract in particular, but the rhetoric doesn’t help.
I didn’t buy into their #equitystrong B.S. - I am eligible to join, but since I don’t live in NYC I have no reason to and will continue to refuse to until they get their act together and stop preventing their own members from getting work."
my thouhts exactly
Broadway World's Fireman.
Baldwin 2
Swing Joined: 8/2/18
#20Labrat
Posted: 11/14/18 at 4:48pm
From someone named “@Playbill_Trash” on the issue awhile back. I’m not a huge fan of the “lab rat” connotation either but posts and opinions like this are so foolish. Re:
The Hamilton OBC (other than Lin Manuel Miranda) absolutely did not and does not deserve any slice of the pie bigger than what their salary was when they signed their contract. Those actors did not create, write, compose, inspire, direct, or choreograph the show. That's why LMM, Ron Chernow, Thomas Kail, Andy Blankenbueler, and Alex Lacamoire have their jobs and deserve their credit. But the rest of the actors do not. They are performers and their job is to do what the creative team tells them to do. I don't care if they were there since the workshop, they are not creators, they are not billed above the title.
The deal that was settled for them was ridiculous, none of them added anything to the production that any other actor could have - and any other actor could have done their job as we now see since they have all left and no production is hurting. None of them were stars. This was not a Chorus Line situation. None of those actors inspired the story or the work on stage. All that credit should have gone to LMM and the rest of the creative team. They are now getting money for work that they did not do. If they want credit for material made for the stage, then they can go out and do the work themselves and become a director, writer, or choreographer on another production. But I'm sorry, they should have understood this when they chose performing as a profession. They are absolutely not entitled to any royalties for that production at all.
A completely different cast in that show would not have changed the impact that it made. It was the material. Ask any other OBC. They all devote their lives to the show they're in. They were nothing special.
#22Labrat
Posted: 11/15/18 at 9:56am
If workshop casts help develop material, like those in Chorus Line, or, in a contemporary example, Book of Mormon (for which workshop cast members, even those who have never- and will never- appeared in the full production, still receive royalties for their role in shaping the material as it stands today), they absolutely deserve fair compensation.
From the actor's perspective, they know- because everyone knows- developing a new musical is a major gamble. Most never make it out of development. But they stick around, on short-term and low-paying development contracts. And I think it's fair for them to ask for more compensation up front, in the very likely outcome of the gamble not paying off.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 11/15/18 at 09:56 AM
SomethingPeculiar
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/15/14
#23Labrat
Posted: 11/15/18 at 10:38am
Annoying Actor Friend wrote an easy-to-digest piece about the Lab contract back in 2015.
A show shifts substantially when the actors come in, the specifics of which are somewhat unknown to all who aren't in the room.
An actor's performance can cause a role to be expanded (or diminished). Writers can tailor new songs/music arrangements to the cast. Actors' feedback can cause the script to change. An ad-libbed or improv'd "bit" can become part of the script and staging. Choreography will be based around the ability of the original ensemble. Ensemble "tracks" are tailored to each individual ensemble member.
What would My Fair Lady be if it hadn't been tailored for Rex Harrison? Or Sweeney for Lansbury and Cariou? Or George for Mandy Patinkin?
#24Labrat
Posted: 11/15/18 at 10:49am
SomethingPeculiar said: "Annoying Actor Friend wrote an easy-to-digest piece about the Lab contract back in 2015.
A show shifts substantially when the actors come in, the specifics of which are somewhat unknown to all who aren't in the room.
An actor's performance can cause a role to be expanded (or diminished). Writers can tailor new songs/music arrangements to the cast.Actors' feedback can cause the script to change. An ad-libbed or improv'd "bit" can become part of the script and staging.Choreography willbe based around the ability of the original ensemble. Ensemble "tracks" are tailored to each individual ensemble member.
What wouldMy Fair Ladybe if it hadn't been tailored for Rex Harrison? Or Sweeney for Lansbury and Cariou? Or George for Mandy Patinkin?"
SomethingPeculiar, honest question: about what you said above, about My Fair Lady for Rex Harrison, etc. Would you then feel like both Ethel Merman and Carol Channing should have gotten something for Hello Dolly, as the show was originally written as a vehicle for Merman, including the two cut songs that later appeared in the show; and was then fashioned around the comedy and personality of Channing?
"Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok. Have you guys heard about fidget spinners!?" ~Patti LuPone
SomethingPeculiar
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/15/14
#25Labrat
Posted: 11/15/18 at 1:39pm
fashionguru_23 said: "SomethingPeculiar, honest question: about what you said above, about My Fair Lady for Rex Harrison, etc. Would you then feel like both Ethel Merman and Carol Channing should have gottensomething for Hello Dolly, as the show was originally written as a vehicle for Merman, including the two cut songs that later appeared in the show; and was then fashioned around the comedy and personality of Channing?"
Well, I think there's a big difference between writing a show with someone in mind, vs. working with an actor in rehearsal/workshop/lab. I'm sure plenty of people have written roles for Kristin Chenoweth or Audra McDonald and then the actors said no.
Or to further use the Mandy Patinkin example: If I recall, he hardly had anything to do when Sunday work sessions began at Playwrights Horizons. His acting and vocal range informed Sondheim/Lapine when fleshing out the character and writing things like "Lesson 8" and "Move On."
