Re: US/CA TOUR SCHEDULE
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 2:57 pm
I think that's a very good summary of the situation, Ellen.
Rob, you say you can't see where this show is more expensive than say Phantom or Wicked...
The difference from those shows is the size of the cast, almost half of which are children. The support costs associated with having that many children in a cast (tutoring, guardians, trainers, chaperones to travel with them, the need for almost constant rehearsal --- makes this a very different show from most others and one that requires more revenue to sustain than many other touring shows. This show travels with a contingent of 100 people! Few touring shows match that number.
In any business, personnel costs are the greatest single expense -- salary and benefits. Obviously the standard equity touring contract made the show too expensive to exist -- so they went to the SETA contract, as Ellen pointed out, to reduce that single biggest cost. The SETA contract was agreed to by Actors Equity as a way of keeping more of its members working and to give smaller theaters/markets the opportunity to host a Broadway caliber show. There have been many shows, for one reason or another, that couldn't make a go of it under the standard contract. But the union didn't want to give producers the option of using SETA just to make greater profits at the expense of paying actors less for shows that were doing well at the box office -- i.e. those that could sustain long stays in a location because it was attracting enough audience to do so.
None of us are privy to all of the circumstances for certain, but it would seem that unless BETMUS went with the SETA contract, the alternative would have been no show at all. And SETA still gives the show the option to occasionally do longer stays in bigger markets.
Rob, you say you can't see where this show is more expensive than say Phantom or Wicked...
The difference from those shows is the size of the cast, almost half of which are children. The support costs associated with having that many children in a cast (tutoring, guardians, trainers, chaperones to travel with them, the need for almost constant rehearsal --- makes this a very different show from most others and one that requires more revenue to sustain than many other touring shows. This show travels with a contingent of 100 people! Few touring shows match that number.
In any business, personnel costs are the greatest single expense -- salary and benefits. Obviously the standard equity touring contract made the show too expensive to exist -- so they went to the SETA contract, as Ellen pointed out, to reduce that single biggest cost. The SETA contract was agreed to by Actors Equity as a way of keeping more of its members working and to give smaller theaters/markets the opportunity to host a Broadway caliber show. There have been many shows, for one reason or another, that couldn't make a go of it under the standard contract. But the union didn't want to give producers the option of using SETA just to make greater profits at the expense of paying actors less for shows that were doing well at the box office -- i.e. those that could sustain long stays in a location because it was attracting enough audience to do so.
None of us are privy to all of the circumstances for certain, but it would seem that unless BETMUS went with the SETA contract, the alternative would have been no show at all. And SETA still gives the show the option to occasionally do longer stays in bigger markets.