Fringe Minimum Wage Debate

by Jennifer Reischel

No actor will deny that especially with Edinburgh 2009 looming, the hot topic of the day is the current minimum wage debate in regards to fringe productions. The press has covered this issue on many occasions and the summarised views of these articles are straight forward: a) Fringe venues would legally and financially collapse if required to pay participating actors a minimum wage b) The fringe is an important part of an actor’s way to keep their hand in the business and get noticed by those offering paid work and c) Equity is responsible for organising more funding in order to make fringe ventures financially viable for all involved.

While this all seems very conclusive especially considering the current economic climate, I believe that there are some fundamental flaws. Of course it all boils down to the eternal problem - combining creative endeavours with business ethos and enterprise. In this tug-of-war it is though ultimately the actors who are currently and more so than before, losing out not just financially but also morally.

Yes, the industry is now totally overrun (reality TV being one of the culprits) and yes, we have to realise that if we decide to be crazy enough to join this treadmill that regular paid work will be an irregular drop in the proverbial ocean for most. But – we all know this, nothing new. That’s not the concern here. The alarm stage has now been reached due to the following reasons:

Firstly, the definition of a professional actor is now ultimately faulty. By default anything that carries the stance “professional” – should be paid. Whilst in the past the majority of acting jobs provided some form of payment (especially during the “good old closed shop days”), the tables have now turned 180 degrees the opposite way.

Not only do we find those starting out and young graduates frantically trying to fill up their CVs with fringe credits ranging from “Upstairs at the pub” to “Downstairs in Joe’s basement (which may only seat 20 and have an audience of 5 on matinee days consisting of mainly comped family members and friends). No, alarmingly we now find very experienced, established and well-recognised actors taking on unpaid work – regularly and in some instances, more so than remunerated work. Why? The answer is simple. Despite working for free, these actors would rather keep their skills fresh than not and also, are afraid that too large a resting time gap in their resume could affect future paid casting. Formerly these incidents happened once in a blue moon when a particular actor wanted to be seen in a totally different light to their current casting box - and fringe seemed a good way to exploit this. Now, seeing “names” on the fringe is a regular occurrence and scarily enough – almost expected.

The “names for bums on seats” premise is now a standard part of the fringe world. It is very clear that the whole industry is shifting downwards. Due to lack of work, those who participated in feature films are now taking on television work, those who thrived in Television are now getting by with other bits and bobs as they have been pushed out of that specific earning niche and those who were paid regulars on the UK theatre stages – are now doing unpaid fringe. Where does leave new graduates? Unknown actors? Anyone without a decent credit, let alone without representation? That’s right – at the bottom of the pile and vulnerable to be totally exploited by anyone who cares to. One may say well tough, only the fittest survive anyway – but where does this leave those young actors who do manage to succeed in some way in ten, twenty, thirty years time? What kind of attitude will they have, what kind of stance on the business and more importantly – what kind of self worth will they carry when they have been taught that frankly, the theatre cleaner and usher are more worth paying for than their rendition of Bianca in Taming of the Shrew.

This leads us on to a quote from Penny at renowned fringe venue the Jermyn Street Theatre in a recent article published by The Stage: “You can either stay at home and wait for a call from EastEnders, or get off your butt and do a musical that you might not get paid a lot of money for, but that leads to something else,” Again, the point is being missed here. Apart from the fact that any actor who is lazy is shown the exit door by default due to the numbers of competition rushing against them at any given minute – actors, shockingly enough, need to survive. I don’t believe people are aware of just how large the population of actors who now that take part in fringe work while trying to juggle day jobs of all sorts to be able to eat, pay their rent and scrape out a London Oyster card fare. I have been there and done that and it is simply not something an actor can keep doing constantly, because in the end, it will physically and emotionally kill you. And contrary to widespread belief, these are NOT just actors who are graduates and starting out like you. Indeed, as some of you may well know, this group includes those in the profession who can supply years of credits. It seems that gathering recognition through reviews, audience figures, part size/type, venue prestige and such has no clout whatsoever when it comes to even being paid a simply minimum wage at the fringe.

Then we have the steady argument of “fringe will lead the bigger and better things”. Countless times I have read audition ads playing on this old adage. The truth: No, most of the time they won’t. They will mostly – lead to more unpaid fringe type work and projects with other struggling actors. Yes, in some cases casting directors and agents do attend fringe performances and yes, maybe one out of those twenty times they will notice an actor and give them further consideration. For every five actors who get seen for that film role or the Royal Shakespeare Company – there will be hundreds and hundreds who won’t. It’s like roulette - some win but most – don’t. Most of those who will get a response from an industry professional after seeing them in a fringe show will very probably already have a background of some kind consisting of luminous professional credits of some sort or other and not be the unmemorable spear carrier with two lines and three quick entrances and exits.

Without giving into the old moan of the grass is always greener somewhere else, fact is that in the United States and particularly on Broadway – the fringe scene is booming – and everyone including the actors – get paid. A quick glance at the American Equity website shows that minimum Equity wage for an off-off Broadway production of the smallest venue size still guarantees earnings of US$550 per week for the actor, regardless of part size. Without going into legal and political detail – why can they do it and we can’t? And if we can’t do it properly, should we be doing it at all? Are we really that desperate to “put on a show” just so that Auntie Irene can admire us doing the Can Can whilst trying not to kick the front row’s heads in? Is the acting profession really just becoming a bunch of amateurs in our way of thinking? Incidentally, I largely oppose the idea of giving fringe the amateur status simply because the quality of most of it is professional and one would be taking away the last straw that so many actors are clinging to.

Finally – we get to the major crux of the matter and the definitive bee in the bonnet. Whereas many fringe productions are labelled as profit share where everyone puts in effort and time and nobody claims financial rewards, there are also those fringe venues that clearly DO profit – and then don’t pass this on to the actor, stage managers, all others working for free and completely ignore the national minimum wage laws. And to add to the debate, scarily even some non-fringe, actual commercial producers and venues now sometimes expect actors to work for free pocketing a large profit in return. This is what gets the goat of most actors today. Not necessarily the fact that we don’t get paid. We are sadly, almost used to that, No, it’s the fact that our contribution to a production seems to be the lowest common denominator, the least worth actually paying a fee for. Equally, why is it that in many fringe cases everybody from the programme seller to the musical director to the lighting bloke seems to get paid – except the actors who are always last? We are partly to blame because we do it for free as we “love it so much” or want that extra credit on our CV luring us into a momentary inkling of security when frankly, the BBC really doesn’t care. But doesn’t this take us back to very the beginning of the controversy, namely that what is most worrying now is the attitude towards and of actors? Are we now festering a generation of twisted professionals come amateurs here that will come to bite us in the bum in the future? Isn’t this a moral issue that needs to be addressed? Isn’t the worry here that fringe venues are defending the no-pay stance and shoving the responsibility somewhere else when ultimately, the responsibility of creating funding and paying those involved lies with the producer? Of course some fringe venues are simply hosting houses however, many also produce fringe themselves.

And they are ignoring all issues raised above and even more strongly, saying that if they change things - then the fringe will die. Fringe venues and producers have to realise that they are running a business and you do not maximise your profit by expecting your staff to bear the loss whilst you take your wages. This skewed logic is totally unacceptable everywhere else in the economic world. A show is a business product plain and simple and if you have a good product, people will buy it. If you give it away, standards will and have dropped. That's when the business starts to die.

We need to ask ourselves the following question: Should unpaid work prevail over paid work at the price of degrading our internationally generally highly respected actors to the degree where they are materially worth less than even the basic minimum wage?

In conclusion, I believe that the only way producers and those employing will start taking us actors seriously again is if we increase our self worth, namely see ourselves as a business and not just a lover of the arts. It is ultimately the job of Equity to “watch out for us” but in the end, we are Equity so we each bear the responsibility ourselves equally. It’s not just about hitting those top notes and doing the splits – it’s about selling yourself and knowing your market value and self worth. After all, what’s the point of giving an amazing performance if a) very few come to see it or review it as it’s so far removed from the sphere of audiences they don’t even really know about it and b) even worse, having others profit from your efforts while you get paid nothing of the share of ticket prices from audience members who thought you were wonderful and would no doubt like to pay you for your efforts? Is this really what the profession should be about?

I don’t have all the answers but I think it’s time we started asking the questions.