Equity Tours becoming Non Equity Tours

Does anyone know why a few tours are finishing the equity run then becoming non equity? For example, The Color Purple equity tour just ended. It will start a non equity tour later this month. Fiddler on the Roof, Legally Blonde, Grease, and Spring Awakening will all become non equity in the Fall or Spring. Any thoughts?

I'm thrilled about this.

The non-equity tours often play theatres and cites that are too small to be able to afford the more expensive equity tours.

Think of them as the mass market paperback editions. :)

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I understand the Avenue Q tour that Broadway in Chicago is bringing in May is Non-Eq.

And it is a fabulous tour!

It's a good thing that there's a non-Equity tour of Avenue Q so that even tiny little backwater villages like Chicago can get to see the show.

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It's only fair. These shows will never come to small cities, otherwise.

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Equity has a list. It's not updated too often though.

http://www.actorsequity.org/NewsMedia/touring_main.asp

The Legally Blonde tour you saw was equity.

Broadway Across America is a presenter, and they present Eq and Non Eq shows. If a show is listed on their website it simply means that one of the markets they represent (or many they represent) will be showcasing that tour.

As someone not in NYC,I Too thank you Ravnquest1---I just learned something interesting.

Trainwreck-

Not necessarily. I played the Paramount with a non-equity tour. You just had Annie come through the Paramount, which is also non-equity. Large cities see mostly equity productions, but also a fair amount of non-equity shows as well. It varies season to season.

I would also like to point out that non-equity does not equal poor theater. I've seen and worked on many shows that were non-equity that were great, and some equity productions that were poor. Union status doesn't translate to a quality show despite what a lot of people think, the people working on it do- union or not. Some shows thrive on the youth and energy of a young non-eq cast just starting in the business- RENT comes to mind. I will say that having a union cast, crew and orchestra suggests that the producer is willing to spend the money and put on a bigger production, and therefore you are likely to see a bigger physical show than on a non-union tour, where the goal is to reduce running costs (the nut). Another major expense most people don't consider is trucking. Contracting the trucks and the truck drivers is a several hundred thousand dollar expense per truck per year, something you do not incur while doing a broadway show in new york. It's an unavoidable expense for smaller one-nighter type shows. Reducing the set size is also about reducing the number of trucks a show travels with. Talk to anyone on the road- truck packing and space is the name of the game.

If equity or non matters to you, that information is fairly freely available. Time was you could easily distinguish between a real tour and a junky one-nighter tour. NETworks used to be all non-equity and fairly low scale (in fact, their name is a partial acronym meaning Non Equity Touring Works), but now they produce some large union tours (South Pacific, Young Frankenstein, My Fair Lady, etc) and are getting bigger.

The line has gotten really blurry. Years ago, tours were mostly a way to recoup lost money on Broadway with a smaller version of a show on the road, and I think we are starting to see a return to those roots, especially since a lot of the new shows that open on Broadway close in short order and/or aren't very good. Legally Blonde certainly went out small-time for a first national tour.

Cameron Mackintosh and others like him came along in the 80s and wanted to do the full original production on the road. That's a massive undertaking. We've all been spoiled with shows like Phantom and Les Miz being full-scale juggernauts, but that's not what touring is really about. That only works for mega-hits, and how many of those are there recently? Just Wicked.

Bottom line- don't get caught up in what kind of show you are seeing. Don't go for a preconceived notion, or you'll be let down one way or another more often than not. If a show is coming that you are interested in, go see it and support the arts. That is what keeps people like me employed.

ravnquest1 - seriously, very very interesting stuff, I totally dig reading your posts! Thank you for these explanations, keep them coming!

Of recent shows I've seen that I can compare to images/video of Broadway versions, I can certainly say that Wicked matches the Broadway sets in almost every way. Actually I was completely blow out of my mind by their set designs in the Seattle production. From what I've seen this tour uses almost every set piece the Broadway version does.

With Legally Blonde (which I've seen the entire Broadway version of on MTV), I noticed that every set on the touring version is about 90% the same as NYC, other than the opening number and a couple different Act 1 sets. I was happy they were able to pull this off, even though the 5th is a smaller stage.

Not sure how Lion King on tour compares to Broadway, but I thought their sets were quite phenomenal as well. I'd also consider Lion King a megahit, so that would explain that.

All very interesting, but I agree with you ravnquest1. Don't go in with preconceived notions based on if a show is union or not. I've seen a few high school plays and amateur local theater plays that rock, even if they don't have a mega-Broadway budget.

If you don't mind me asking - are you an actor? What shows have you been in?

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Awesome, thanks for the info!

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"Non Eq ticket top price: 70something."

Not really true. The equity tours that come through the Community center have tickets priced as low as $50 for orchestra seats. I've never spent more than $65 per ticket for an equity tour ticket in Sacramento.

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