No more.
Theatre interns have been reduced to cheap labor. When brought into a company they are asked to do more work, put in more hours for less pay than company members or equity actors. Unless the theatre is attached to a training program, and most cases even then, the interns are not taught anything. There is no system of tutelage in place but an institution of practical experience and trials by fire – which is good and fair and should be included in any internship. But actor-interns are expected to help in the costume shop, in the office, in the scene shop, hanging lights – all for less money than company members who show up for rehearsals and performances and go home.
What it boils down to is that an actor-intern’s time is not as valuable as other actors'. There is little if any recognition that interns still have students loans to pay, bills, possibly rent. There has yet to be an internship that pays for all the interns’ meals.
The damage is not limited to the actor-interns, but members of the theatre’s unions as well. Actor-interns take jobs away from people who have trained to work behind the scenes and want that to be their career. The biggest chance for an actor-intern to injure himself is working with equipment he is not trained with, and it’s also the theatre’s best chance to end up with broken equipment.
These programs also take acting jobs away from union actors. Yes, the parts given to actor-interns are usually the smaller or peripheral roles, but still, a union actor could be working and getting paid. Usually interns are admitted into the EMC (Equity Membership Candidate) program, and hours are given towards eventual union membership. If union membership is the purpose of the internships, then why does Equity allow extra work given to the EMC members since once they join the union, the actor- intern will never be allowed to do any extra work? How does it all prepare them for union membership and a future acting career?
The only excuse for such programs to exist is that they save theatres money – but what a poor excuse. Programs such as these exploit the passion young people have for Theatre through a system of hazing. Scared that they won’t get other work and hopeful that if they execute their extra duties well they will be asked back, actor-interns accept these outrageous conditions. In many, many cases, the interns are not asked to join the company, or they are asked to return for another stint as an intern.
Admittedly, while not equitable, such programs can work out for young, young actors or college students who don’t know what direction they want to go in their theatre careers. On the whole, however, these programs only serve to encourage theatres to offer internships to any non-union actor, reasoning that it will be a good experience to be insultingly underpaid. The same roles offered in these types of internships, without the extra work, for regular pay would be happily accepted by an out of work actor, equity or not. Theatres feel that they have permission to tell some actors that their time and talent just aren’t worth as much as other actors.
No one would ever go to a plumber and say, ‘Listen, I have this huge apartment building in Manhattan. Now, I can’t afford to pay you as much as the union guys who are working, but oh, the experience you will get. I have over 200 toilets in the place, 150 showers and 300 sinks. Now, you’ll also have to hang some dry wall, paint, and take care of the sidewalks in bad weather, not to mention walk Mrs. Sullivan’s dogs, but after a year of this, I’m sure you won’t have any problems finding real work at another building.’
The current institution of internships sets up a class system within the profession that fosters a lack of respect toward younger or non-union actors. Why should people want to pursue a career in which they are not respected by their peers and colleagues? Why would the union that governs the profession, calling itself EQUITY, allow such an environment to exist?
Perhaps a change can only occur on a small scale, theatre by theatre, each finding its own solution, not only by changing the expectations of the actor-interns, but of the company members as well. The institution of internships in American theatre needs an over-hauling so that it can foster future generations of actors who are trained for the stage on the stage. It needs to bring these actor-interns up in an environment of respect. (There are some theatres that do so, and the question arises about the relationship these companies have with Actors Equity and whether or not that is a factor in how these companies are run over-all.) It’s bad enough that in many places actors are still thought second-class citizens. That attitude should not exist inside the industry itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment