#non-equity

A Day in the Life of a Non-Equity Touring Stage Manager

A Day in the Life of a Non-Equity Touring Stage Manager | brokeGIRLrich

It’s been a while since we’ve done a day in the life of! It occurred to me though that my days on my last tour were wildly different from any other job I’ve done.

I was on a bus and truck non-Equity national tour. The means that I lived on a sleeper bus. The fact that the tour was non-Equity meant that things like days off…

I’m actually not sure about this!  Followers?  

Non-Equity performers can still attend EPAs, and you’re right, they will be seen when all the Equity performers have been seen!  So, either when there are little slots between performers where nobody else is ready to go or there aren’t any Equity performers present, or when all the Equity performers are done for the day.  Point being, there can’t be any Equity performers who have to wait on a non-Eq performer.  If you’re next and you’re the last person they’re going to see, and ten Equity performers walk in, you won’t get seen anymore.   

Great question. This is why I’m not an advocate of moving to NYC right out of college before you have your card.  I think getting your card in a regional location, or by gaining EMC points by travelling around the country, is a lot easier than trying to bank on getting a Broadway contract.  There are just so many actors in NYC.  So many non-Eqs and so many Equity performers.  There is an estimate of about 30,000 union actors in NYC.  And I’d guess there were probably more non-Equity actors there.  That’s...A lot of people.  For not that many jobs.  

From the Equity website:

“There are three steps to becoming an Equity Membership Candidate:

1) Obtain an eligible position at an Equity Theatre that utilizes the EMC Program

2) Complete the EMC Registration Form provided by the producer (please note the Union does NOT provide these forms to individuals)

3) Return the completed form, with the non-refundable $100 registration fee payable to Actors’ Equity Association, to the Producer for filing with the Union. (Be sure to keep a copy of the completed form and proof of the registration fee for your files).”

For a second I was super confused, because the ship I was on was called EQ (Equinox), so I was thinking, “Woah, you’re going on the Equinox, cool!”  But then I realized you meant Equity.  Ha, oops.

So, here’s the rather complicated way that contracts work for Equity/Non-Equity.  (And if I misspeak here, please shoot me a message--anybody who has studied this Equity stuff knows just how convoluted it is, so absolutely feel free to correct me if I’ve misunderstood any of the rules.)  You can be offered an unlimited number of Equity contracts and turn them down an unlimited number of times.  Easy.  Where it gets complicated is if you want to take an Equity contract, but stay Non-Eq and just gather EMC points.  You can do this a limited number of times (in other words, once you fill up your EMC points) but at a certain point, you will be forced to either not take the contract or become Equity.  This is because when you get an Equity contract but stay Non-Eq, you are essentially taking the benefits of Equity without actually paying the dues or dealing with the restrictions.  So, if you take enough Equity contracts as a non-Eq and get your 50 points, the next contract you get you will have to choose whether to go Equity or not take the contract.  Keep in mind that not ALL theatres will offer EMC points, in which case I don’t believe you can take the Equity contract if you are non-Eq.  (Confused yet?  Me too.)  There’s another option on top of all of that.  Most regional theatres have a deal with the union where they can hire a certain percentage of their cast as non-Eq, and give them non-Eq contracts.  That will mean lower pay, yes, but they will likely get most of the benefits that Equity has.  (That is, they’re not going to say, “Equity sanctioned break, 15 minutes!  But not you non-Eq people...No break for you...” or “Ah, the Equity coffee table, wonderful.  Oh, no non-Eqs allowed over here, this is the Equity table...”)  So that’s your other option!  This isn’t something you can keep up forever, though--you can’t really just slide by on non-Eq contracts at Equity theatres your whole life.  Eventually you will have to make the choice.  

It depends on the audition.  I go to loooots of Equity auditions here around town, and they’re pretty much the same as non-Eq auditions.  This is partially because they will generally have Equity days and non-Equity days, so there’s no waiting around for slots.  I’ll address NYC auditions, because that’s where it’s most prevalent.  

The big thing is that non-Equity actors will have to wait until all Equity actors have been seen, period.  If there are slots, then the non-Equity actors can sometimes wait and try to slip in between slots if they’re running ahead or somebody doesn’t show up.  But if ANY Equity actors are waiting, they will get seen first.  Similarly, if there are any EMC members, they will go before non-Equity actors.  (EMC=Equity Membership Candidate.)  If they never have time to see non-Equity, you may just get turned away for the day.  I suppose the other thing is, usually non-Equity performers line up way early in the morning and make an “unofficial list,” which may be honored by the casting director or may not.  So that just proves who was there first, etc.  They may say, “I don’t care, we’re starting a new list” as well, because the issue with “unofficial lists” is that people will just sign up their ten friends who didn’t actually show up at six in the morning like everybody else.  Not exactly fair.  The Disney call I went to had an unofficial list that was not honored, but it honestly wasn’t a big deal.  Those of us closer to the front area got seen first and we all got seen. The line around the building was HUGE, hundreds of people, but anybody near the front got seen, so having a list of who was technically there first wasn’t really relevant.  So anyways, what may end up happening is at the end of the day, they may say, “We’ll see the first ten on the non-Eq list, the rest of you can go home.”  Or they may see EVERYBODY on the non-Eq list of they have time.  There’s just no saying what they may have the time or energy for.  And different casting companies are more friendly than others--some are really warm and welcoming to non-Eq, some are not.

In the audition room, a non-Equity performer will be treated (hopefully) exactly the same.  They will get the same number of bars to sing, etc. In the Tara Rubin Casting workshop I did, somebody asked if they considered non-Equity less than Equity, and they said once the actors was in the room, it honestly didn’t matter.  Their experience mattered, yes, and their resume did have an impact, but the label of Equity vs. non-Equity didn’t matter.