Is It Time For Performers To Renegotiate The 8 Show Week?

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/opinion-alternates-on-broadway_92880.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=15oct2021&fbclid=IwAR398A_cQ3X0pFPECxZNV3eSZxN8vA8xSnb6EV4A58PrEUEPHZ1E5JpcIE0 The author of this article is Pete Hempstead - Theatremania.

Updated On: 10/15/21 at 12:33 PM

I have no problem with alternates as long as it's clearly advertised dates. You can't use actors in your ads "see the Tony-nominated performance!" but then put someone else on without warning (injuries and sick days happening day-of not withstanding). I didn't care for JLP but as a huge Heidi fan I'd be interested in seeing her in the role, but taking a 50/50 shot when buying a ticket isn't worth the risk. (That's an example, I'm not sure if they have or will announce dates).

The issue really is going to come down to affordability. Shows may have to start hiring more actors making the weekly costs that much hire. For a big hit show two more salaries a week won't destroy their margins but a struggling show can't always afford that. If shows shifted to a 5 day a week schedule that means ticket prices will have to go up and we already bemoan costs as it is. UK theatre is SO much cheaper, but UK theatre actors and crews make way less.

I'm fine with alternates, I think most people are. As long as the schedule is established, I doubt anyone would have an issue.

You hire more actors, costs go up. You cancel performances, prices go up. You want to work "less", your salary goes down.



Maybe writers need to start writing shows that are obtainable for 8 shows a week again.

unclevictor said: "dramamama611 said: "You hire more actors, costs go up. You cancel performances, prices go up. You want to work "less", your salary goes down.



Maybe writers need to start writing shows that are obtainable for 8 shows a week again."

It's about an attainable schedule. 8 shows a week is hard on everyone. Ithink if theproducers want 8 shows a week, there needs to be 2 full days off.

I can’t imagine anyone involved in a show either on stage or off would want to do 8 shows over 5 days. You’d have to do shows Wednesday through Sunday nights and matinees on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s really rough.

dramamama611 said: "And please note: I'm not against less than 8 perfs a week - but everything comes at a cost.

Their "work day" (once in full swing) is much less than a 40 hour work week. (and I'm not suggesting they SHOULD be working 40 hours) I think it's a tough pill to swallow that working a 2.5 hour show, once or twice a day is too much

I would just like to gently push back against the idea that once a show opens, the weekly workload goes way down. Because I thought this too, and then I took a closer look at the numbers.

For instance, I just did a quick spreadsheet adding up an archetypal broadway/broadway-type show that rehearses for 3 weeks, techs for 2 weeks, previews for 2 weeks, and runs for 10 weeks. For a show that elects not to do a straight six (a lot of musicals don't), that's a 42 hour week (I'm being generous and not calling it a 48 hour week, because when we talk about other 9-5 jobs we don't subtract lunch from that 40 hours).

Then we get into tech, which I'm counting as a mix of 8/10s and 10/12s. That's a 50 hour week on the low end and a 60 hour week on the high depending on how you split them up.

Preview weeks are right around 50, depending on whether or not you jump right into 8 show weeks.

Then the show opens. I looked at the weekly schedule of a show that's well established into its run. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are full of music brush-ups, choreo brush-ups, understudy rehearsals, and put-ins. Of course, not everyone is called for every rehearsal block, but a few people are (especially swings and dance captains, to say nothing of the stage managers and crew).

If this imaginary show has a runtime of 2:30 or 2:45 (like a lot of musicals), that means your show call as an actor is essentially 4 hours. So 32 hours of show plus anywhere between 6 and 12 hours of rehearsal each week. (sure, we can fuss about how close to half hour you're arriving, whether there's a fight call, how fast you can get out of costume, etc. 4 hours is a middle-of-the-road estimate).

Anyway, I added the hours up, and extrapolated over a course of a year (this is a magical actor who starts a new show immediately after the old one closes). It averages out to about a 44 hour week. Certainly not a life of 16 hour days, but it also isn't the cushy part time hours that a lot of people assume when they think the show is open and there's no more work to be done.

It's news to me that there are multiple weekly brush-up sessions that the cast must endure. I knew there were understudy rehearsals and put-ins, and perhaps a weekly Thursday or Friday brush-up, so I'm surprised there.

That said, an eight show a week schedule is really the only way to keep a show afloat unless they raise ticket prices, and double-casting would mean more to pay when shows can barely break even, and 8 shows over 6 days would unrealistic - both for endurance and how many matinees would actually make money - what else can be done?

Personally I find 2-show days more than twice as hard as a one-show day. I know some shows do it but 3 matinee days a week feels way more exhausting over time than a 6-day week with most days free.

It would be great if it could be mandated that a day off must be preceded by a matinee and followed by an evening, guaranteeing 48 hours. I've done awful schedules like a Tuesday day off meaning the last show was a Monday night and the first was a Wednesday matinee. It was miserable after a time.

And yes, you likely need to allocate two days a week to understudy rehearsal so now you're up to 5 long days in a week for much of the company. If people really want to push this we may have to start thinking about a 7-show week with a pay cut which I'm not sure is a good solution.

I get the thought process, but I don't think, as someone stated above, actors should really be complaining. My grandmother worked 40 hrs a week, standing on her feet, in an assembly line. Sure, double show days can be tough, but it's not that bad.

On the flip side, doing a musical, your whole life is dedicated to doing this show. You wake up, check your voice, warm-up, etc. Even on your day off, you can't go to Vegas and party. You are still sleeping and taking care of yourself. Your whole life is the show, so it's a tough balance.

adotburr said: "I remember someone (Kay Trinidad Karns I think?) from Hadestown flying to and from Disney World on her Monday day off and back in the show by Tuesday. Probably not ideal but she made it work. Enjoyed her day off without having to miss any shows or take time off either."

Beth Malone has talked about doing this later during Fun Home's run and I believe during Angels as well she spend "her broadway money" on flying to Colorado (I think) every weekend to ski and how lucky she was to never have missed a flight during the winter.

I get that theater actors work hard and that at various points, the hours can be very long. But theater like some other professions has unique elements to it and its typical work schedule and IMO, it's hard to compare it to a "typical" 52 week a year/ 8 or more hours a day profession to push the "6 days a week is too much" argument. The theater actor whether working on Broadway, off Broadway, regional or local who actually has work for 52 weeks a year is by far the small exception rather than the rule. The Broadway performer who is part of a show that runs for a year or if they're lucky many years is the exception. My sense is most working theater actors especially the vast majority who are not on Broadway, and those who do it for a living can feel free to correct me, are lucky to find paid work 20 weeks a year. The rest of the time, they're doing what they can to pick up extra cash or are paid well enough for those 20 weeks that they don't have to. For almost every actor, there is some and in many cases significant downtime between shows, more than some would like. So yes, they're working 6 days a week but for limited periods with extended breaks to rest and recover. It's the nature of the profession they've chosen.

And as has been said, I don't think an 8 performance schedule over 5 days is realistic and if you cut it to 7 or 6, less revenue equals less pay. Is that an acceptable outcome for the theater actor who struggles to live on the salary they make now working 8 performances? And I have to say at the risk of being unkind, almost all theater actors are just coming off a 19 month period of zero on stage work. To raise this issue of we're being worked too hard now, just feels a bit tone deaf to me.

With 10-out-of-12s, I can understand why people feel like: even though it's always been done this way, all it takes is one look at the practices with fresh eyes to see how unfair it is. But with the regular show schedule, I don't know, it feels like more of a grey area. I've only done 8 shows a week on a few occasions, for some very short runs. So I can't speak to the experience of doing this over the course of months.

So I'm actually wondering: IS this something that theatre workers find to be an undue strain? Because we can try to parse out the math all we want, with their breaks per hour, hours per week, weeks per year, and how that compares to their pay. It's worth scrutinizing that data, but at the end of day, the only way to really know how much of a burden it is, is to do it.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop from the Twitter-sphere, but are people actually raising widespread complaints with the performance schedule? Or is this just a spin-off conversation from a Theatremania article about the pros and cons of alternates? I looked at the NM10/12 website and I'm still unclear on whether their "6 day work week" refers only to tech rehearsals, or to regular runs in general.

In any case, the more we run through this, the more I'm reminded of how fragile and seemingly unsustainable the entire commercial theatre model is for the world we live in, on so many levels.