"Equity On Tour"

 

[As readers of Rick On Theater know by now, I have an occasional series of articles on this blog describing jobs and professions in theater that few even avid theatergoers know much about.  I’ve covered stage managers, dance captains, swings, understudies, and wig-makers; now I’m posting an article from Equity News (vol. 104, no. 4 [Fall 2019], entitled “Equity on Tour”) which features interviews with union members who work on national tours of Broadway shows.  I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate article to post on ROT.] 

“ALL IN A YEAR: EQUITY MEMBERS BUSY WITH NATIONAL TOURS IN 2019”

Perhaps the only thing harder than making a living on stage or backstage is doing so while touring. And yet, there are now more members doing just that than at any point since the last recession. With interest in touring only continuing to grow, Equity News sat down with seven tour veterans – a mix that included stage managers, an understudy, principals and chorus – to find out what they have learned from life on the road. Special thanks to Kevin McMahon, chair of the SETA [Short Engagement Touring Agreement] Committee, for helping to lead the conversation. What follows is their conversation and their lessons, edited for space and clarity.

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL A NEW MEMBER BEFORE THEIR FIRST TOUR? 

Kevin McMahon: For me, it’s “bring less.” You don’t need it. If you do need something, you can buy it.

John Atherlay: It’s okay not to know the answers; ask questions. And don’t try and fake it.

Christine Toy Johnson: I’d pass along some great advice I got from my friend Jose Llana right before I left town. He had just come back from two years on the road with The King and I and suggested these top three things:

1. Ziploc bags will be your friends. (Now I have reusable ones, and they are my friends.)

2. You don’t need that much stuff. You may have a couple of parties where you really want to dress up, but he said he started the tour with five suits and by the end was down to one black blazer, which he used for all press and opening nights.

3. You don’t need to lug around gigantic, Costco-sized lotions and shampoos. Normal sizes are good!

Andrew Bacigalupo: Know we’re not brain surgeons. It’s serious, we’re all professionals, but everything doesn’t have to get elevated so quickly. There doesn’t have to be stress. This is something we want to do, so let’s enjoy doing this. There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect because everybody’s watching, but really, everybody’s in this together.

Marina Lazzaretto: It’s important to find the things that bring you joy and do them in every city. For me, I plan my workout in every city. I find the places that I want to go to, and that’s what brings me joy, and I plan my life around that.

David O’Brien: I go on websites like TripAdvisor to see the top ten things to do and try to do at least one of them in each city; something to get me out of the theater so I don’t lose my mind. I would definitely advise new people to take advantage of the cities they’re going to, because it’s such a great experience to travel the country.

Sid Solomon: I’m a big fan of meeting people. My first Equity job, I spent two years touring with The Acting Company, which is a very different kind of touring model where you’re very bus-and-truck, one night here, one night there, in very small towns.

I did everything that I could to try to meet people who lived in those places. Sit down at a restaurant that’s known as a place where people from that city go and start a conversation. The country is wide and vast and filled with lots of different kinds of people, and the people in the city are the ones we’re there to do the show for. So, every opportunity that I could take to just meet somebody and find out what their life is like felt to me like it enriched my ability to do the work that I was in that city to do.

McMahon: Most of my good memories of my years on the road revolve around the stuff that we did with my friends, like that the trip on the balloon in Albuquerque with “O’B” (David O’Brien), trips to the dog park with all my dog friends on the road . . . that’s a part of living. That’s your life.

O’Brien: We have 14 dogs on our tour now, Kevin!

HOW DO YOU STAY HEALTHY ON THE ROAD?

Johnson: Come From Away is like a 100-minute long sprint, and I find I have to prepare myself in a different way than I have for other shows. As much as I do love seeing as much as I can of the cities I’m in, I am also very conscious of not having a mindset that I’m on vacation. The only reason I’m away from my home and my husband and my dog for most of the year is to do the show.

So I’ll do whatever I need to do to be at my optimal energy for the show. It’s all about balance. I am a writer as well, and part of the leadership of Equity and the Dramatists’ Guild, and I chair a few committees. I get up at 6:30 or 7 in the morning just naturally. When it occurred to me that I needed to be at my optimal energy 12 hours after I got up, I realized that I had to really be mindful of structuring my day for both physical and mental wellbeing. It took me months to set up the parameters so that I could do this.

I don’t do meetings on Mondays anymore because even if it’s a travel day or golden day; it’s a day off. I don’t do meetings after a certain time in the afternoon because I have to reset my body clock and take a little nap or be quiet. Now I don’t really do a lot of things after the show, except for on Sundays, and it seems super boring sometimes, but for me it’s all about making sure that I am at my peak performance level at all times. I’m proud to say that (as we speak) I’ve done every single performance of our run so far.

Lazzaretto: I want to talk about food on the road, because I think it’s particularly difficult to feel your best and to perform your best when you’re consistently eating out at garbage restaurants. I make it a priority to find a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s in each city. I travel with a plate, a bowl and a kitchen knife so that I can have my normal diet, food that I would eat at home, in my hotel or in my Airbnb. And that helps me maintain my optimal body health for my show.

Johnson: Same. Exactly. It’s absolutely vital to do that.

Solomon: It has always been my experience that people who do what we do tend to be creatures of habit. We were touring with a lot of first-time-touring people, and it was really important for all of us to accept the limitations of touring as quickly as possible, to understand that for as much as you have a dedicated routine at home, there are realities to being on the road. The sooner you’re willing to figure out how to maintain as much of your routine, as many of the things that make you happy on a day-to-day basis, you should do that. For me, it’s light in hotels. I need there to be some light in my room, and I will go back to the front desk and ask for a room with better light.

My health suffered for the first six months of the tour because I’m an outdoor runner. We were in cold weather cities a lot, and I had a really hard time adjusting my exercise schedule.

Atherlay: I don’t do workout routines very often because my schedule changes at the drop of a dime, so I tend to walk around a lot. I listen to Sirius Radio, and I just see the different sites. I’ve been touring long enough that I’ve seen them all, so I know where to go that gives me peace.

I also tend to find the closest hotel to the theater so that I can go away between shows or after rehearsal and before the show, so my day is broken up. I’m not spending 12–13 hours in the theater, but maybe four or five, then going away for two hours and coming back. It refreshes my brain and relaxes me a lot.

YOU BRING UP A GOOD POINT. WHAT DOES EVERYONE DO FOR MENTAL HEALTH?

Bacigalupo: We’ve been talking about mental health on my tour recently. I think, as Christine said, we’re not here on vacation. We’re not there just to have fun in the city. We’re there to do the show. Some people go out after the shows, to this bar or that place with an “always on the move” mentality. I think it’s important to realize that I wouldn’t necessarily do that while I was at home, so working on the road I don’t need to feel the pressure to do that either. It’s okay to have time to yourself.

McMahon: I couldn’t agree with you more, Andrew. Sometimes you’re 50 years old and you feel like you’re back in high school with the parties and who didn’t get invited to this thing, and you have to step back and like realize, okay this is just for now. This is just this week, and next week we’ll be in a different city. It will all be different.

Lazzaretto: For my own mental health, it was important to realize early on in my experience that you don’t have to feel like you have to be everyone’s friend. If we worked in a normal office, you wouldn’t feel obligated to spend all your time with every person you worked with, so it’s okay to realize that not everyone on your tour is going to be your friend. You do your work together, and you can be pleasant and nice to each other, but you don’t have to feel bad if you’re not invited to something. You don’t have to be everyone’s friend. It’s okay.

O’Brien: I’m sober. I’ve been sober for 29 years, and it has its specific challenges on the road. And that is my staying healthy. A lot of it has to do with having my dog, finding people that aren’t in that party mindset. It can be done, but it’s much more challenging on the road.

STAGE MANAGERS: HOW IS YOUR ROLE DIFFERENT ON THE ROAD COMPARED TO DOING A SIT-DOWN PRODUCTION?

O’Brien: There’s so much more to it on the road, which is why I like being on the road. So much of my career was in New York, and I always found it to be a challenge, especially on shows that did run a long time. I was on Cats for five years. Five years in New York is to me tougher than five years on the road. The excitement of going from city to city and being in a new theater and a new environment gives everything a new energy.

Atherlay: I’m with O’B. I much prefer the road. We’re in Toronto at the Mirvish, and it’s our first theater without a crossover. So we had to go in and figure out what costume changes need to be moved where. And focusing the show where we are – our second stop didn’t have box booms, so we had to move everything to the front and deal with the challenge of making it look the same without the same positions, which is very, very difficult.

But I’ve been around so much, a lot of cities become second homes to me. I know the challenges in Toronto, what we’ll have at the Golden Gate in San Francisco, what we’re going to have in Cleveland when we get there in a couple of weeks. But it’s the challenges I prefer.

Bacigalupo: When you’re always moving, there’s more of a “we’re all in this together vibe,” and it’s a whole different atmosphere to the show.

WHAT TOOLS DO YOU USE TO GET YOURSELF ACCLIMATED TO A CITY?

McMahon: I always go on Trip Advisor, and there’s a new Facebook group I think a lot of us belong to called Tour Talk, where people share advice on cities and actually give tips on hotels, which was very helpful to me on my last tour.

Solomon: I have for a very long time kept a membership to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and they have an extensive reciprocal membership program for not all that much money that gets me free entry into art museums in basically every city. And so early in each week, I would go and find the major art museum in the city. It’s usually in the center of town, and it usually has some deep rich history about how it was founded and it tends to be such a part of the civic identity of a city, that it tended to tell me a lot really quickly.

Johnson: I eat a 90% Paleo menu, so I will Google “Paleo + [name of the city]” and find the restaurants that fit the bill. There’s a small group of us that likes to find a good restaurant to go to on the first night in a city, so I make the reservation and find something that’s a treat for all of us. I also start with locating the nearest Whole Foods, because you can do wonders with a rotisserie chicken and a box of salad.

O’Brien: On our tour now, we have a group of people that love to eat breakfast, so we find breakfast restaurants in our cities. It’s been great.

Bacigalupo: On every Tuesday or every load-in day, we do a management lunch where company management and stage management go out together. There’s a lot of excitement in the days before we to go a city about where we are going to lunch on Tuesday. And then just the stage managers, the three of us, always do brunch sometime in the week, and it’s important to us to have the time that’s just our department to check in.

Lazzaretto: To me, the people who know the city the best are the locals. I like to find a yoga place in every city, and I talk to the people in class there. They tell me where their favorite restaurant is or what their favorite art museum is, or what else I shouldn’t miss.

McMahon: I couldn’t agree more. I used to talk to the dressers, and I would research the dog parks and ask the people there what they like, and I’ve never been steered wrong.

DOES ANYONE HERE TRAVEL WITH THEIR FAMILY?

Johnson: My husband Bruce and my dog Joey travel with me often but not full time. In the first year of Come From Away, we had four children traveling with us, five dogs and at least two or three spouses full time. My company has been extraordinary about welcoming all extended family to everything we do, which has been, I think, really essential to the inclusive happy family feeling that we have in our show.

McMahon: For me, my husband Doug and I have a five-week rule. We had to see each other, physically, at least once every five weeks. That was the absolute rule.

Atherlay: I have three kids. My two boys grew up when I was doing Beauty and the Beast, so I was home for them. When I started touring again, we put a map on the kitchen refrigerator. My ex-wife would pinpoint where I was, and when I would call them, we’d talk about time differences and seasonal differences, and I got them to figure out what the country was. Before computers and texts, our communication was phone calls. My daughter, who is now 18, would visit me on the road because her mother’s grandmother lived outside of Chicago. Four or five times when I was playing Detroit, they would be driving home from Chicago and stop off to spend the weekend with me, to the point where when she was in first grade, my daughter told everybody at school that her daddy lived in Detroit.

It’s about communicating. It’s about talking and sending postcards and showing your kids where everything is. And now my daughter is studying theatre management in college.

Bacigalupo: I have a boyfriend that I started seeing last summer, before I started this tour. We didn’t get quite to seeing each other every five weeks, but we haven’t been apart for more than two months at a time. It’s important to have somebody that you can go to who’s not involved with the show. It helps to realize there’s a world outside the isolated bubble of the tour. I don’t think I could have made it through this tour without having someone I could go to as a sounding board who’s not really involved with the production.

WHEN YOU HAVE A CONTRACT THAT IS EXPIRING, HOW DO YOU DECIDE TO RENEW OR NOT TO RENEW?

Johnson: For all of us, I think you check the boxes: do you love the show? Are they treating you well, both salary-wise and globally? Are you artistically fulfilled? Kevin, you taught me this. If you have at least two of these three things, it’s easy to stay.

I think I can speak for everyone in the Come From Away company – we feel so invested in the message of the show. No one ever wants to be out. No one ever wants to not do the show. The people that left didn’t really want to leave; they had children going to school or other commitments that they needed to tend to.

For me, the positives outweigh the negatives (being away from home), so it was not a hard decision to stay for year two.

Solomon: Our situation was a little different in that we opened the first national tour the beginning of September and we closed in the middle of August. So the first national tour came to an end, but we knew the show was going to continue on for a second tour on a new contract.

Once we knew what the details of the contract were, there started to be conversations with the cast about continuing on with our show. If you haven’t seen The Play That Goes Wrong, it’s very intricate. It’s complicated. It’s very dangerous. And the more people you have who have done it before, the better off you are.

I loved my time on the road. I loved the tour. I loved the show. I love the people. Understudying the show is a particular challenge. I was not in the same kind of physical pain the rest of the cast is on a daily basis, but the mental anguish of not only keeping that show in my head but being prepared for it on a nightto-night basis was its own special kind of thing.

For me, it simply came down to having to be away from my wife and my dog and my family. My whole life is here in New York. Another minimum nine months on the road just wasn’t the right choice for me right now. And for me that’s actually kind of a big deal. All I ever wanted to do is work. No job is too small, no role is too small. I just want to be doing something all the time. So I’m kind of proud of myself. It was time to look for the next adventure.

Lazzaretto: I think that the number one thing for me as I’m evaluating whether or not I want to continue a contract is: am I still growing as an artist? Am I feeling stagnant? Is there more I can gain from this specific production?  What is the level of my happiness doing this job? Whether I’m going to be happy is the most important.

Atherlay: I look at how I’m being treated. I look at what they offer me to renew. I’ve been very fortunate so far in that I’ve been treated very well. I don’t believe in just leaving work. It’s not in my nature.

Bacigalupo: With stage managers, we don’t really have a contract renewal, we’re just here until we’re not here. I had an opportunity to leave the show for another show earlier in the year, and I felt such anguish about leaving this creative team. I have so much respect for them, and I care about them so much, and they have really helped my career move forward, so I felt a big responsibility to them.

I felt a lot of responsibility for the show. Everybody is replaceable, but I was in the room when the show was created. I know why we’re doing this move, not just that we’re crossing to this number at this moment. And I think a lot of that gets lost in translation as you pass the show on to another PSM.

O’Brien: The only thing I would say is the same as Marina. I left Wicked once because I felt I wasn’t as happy, and I wasn’t serving the show – I was not doing my best job at that time. I thought I needed to take a break from Wicked, and then once the position opened up again, I came back because I realized the show makes me happy. But I will leave a contract if I feel like I’m not doing it justice.

WHEN YOU HAVE A CHOICE FOR HOUSING & TRAVEL, WHAT FACTORS DO YOU CONSIDER IN MAKING THOSE DECISIONS?

McMahon: For me, I’ll tell you that Marriott Rewards Points were as important as my 401(k). (Laughs) If there was a Marriott, I knew there would be a consistent quality of housing, and they’re usually pet friendly.

Johnson: Because we’ve traveled with so many pets, our company manager has made sure that all of our housing has been pet-friendly. I generally stay with the company because I like to be around them, and I don’t like to travel home from the theater by myself. It’s most important for me to be really near the theater if possible, because I like to get there early and also go back to the hotel in between shows to rest. One other thing: the presence or absence of refrigerator and microwave. That’s really important too, because otherwise, you know, you can’t have your rotisserie chicken and a box of salad if you don’t have any place to put them to keep them cool.

O’Brien: I will also look at the company choices and look at ratings, just because where I’m living is so important to me. I will be miserable in a place if my housing is bad.

Bacigalupo: I have stayed at an Airbnb twice on this whole tour in the past year. I get super anxious about Airbnbs – there seems to be a lot of pressure in finding the best Airbnb, the closest Airbnb, the cheapest Airbnb. It’s like a full-time job. It’s too much stress to figure out, so I’ve stayed in the company option most of the time. Even if it was a more expensive option, I would still pick the company hotel, because I knew that if there were issues with the room, if the water doesn’t work, if there was mold, the company would take care of it.

And I do the same for travel. I know a lot of people do their own travel between cities, but I do Monday load-ins. The stress of a flight delay if I paid for the ticket is a lot higher than if the flight’s delayed and the company’s paid for it, because if I don’t make it to load-in, the company will help to figure it out. That takes all of that stress away from me.

Atherlay: Location is important to me, especially with my schedule. And sometimes the pricing is ludicrous, but it’s par for the course. Like Andrew, I’ve had too many actors spend too much time complaining about the Airbnb: that it’s not what they what they signed up for, it’s not what was advertised. I find the hotel is important because it’s my peace of mind. If it is a bad hotel, someone’s going to take care of it and fix it or move me or upgrade me or something.

Lazzaretto: I feel the same. Proximity to the venue is always top priority for me. I’m one of those people who’s splitting my time between the hotels and Airbnb dependent on the length of stay. If we’re somewhere for a week, I’m more likely to just choose the closest hotel option. If we’re somewhere a little longer, I like to have a kitchen.

HOW DOES BEING IN THE UNION AFFECT YOUR TIME ON THE ROAD? ARE THERE TIMES YOU’VE TURNED TO THE UNION FOR HELP?

McMahon: Speaking personally, I know I was on the phone a lot with my reps. Our tour had a lot of new members on the road, and they didn’t understand the rules and working conditions. I was deputy, and I became a teacher for a lot of people about Equity and the contract. The union was incredibly helpful to me in every capacity.

Solomon: Something both being a union member and now being a union officer had me very mindful of on the road was how I interacted with other workers on the road.

Especially when you are living in hotels, taking taxis, going to restaurants – you are constantly interacting with the hospitality industry. And so many of the workers that you are interacting with are unionized workers; sometimes they’re workers who are trying to unionize. I did everything I could to be as mindful as possible of being respectful to fellow workers. Whether that was being mindful of appropriately tipping at hotels, or in cities where there’s a difference between how people are paid to drive – a licensed taxi as opposed to just getting in somebody’s car for Uber – I tried to err on the side of that being mindful to how I was contributing to the way another person made their living.

Lazzaretto: I learned so much about our union and the contracts from Kevin when I was on the road with him. The one thing I like to tell new members in the shows I’m doing is not to be afraid to call the union. It’s there to help you and to be a resource. Call your rep, ask them questions. They’re all so lovely and helpful and willing to give you the information.

McMahon: Being a deputy also becomes a teaching experience for new members. I took that duty very seriously.

Johnson: One of the things I’m most mindful of is our 401(k). That’s an awesome thing that’s part of a negotiated contract. I’m especially grateful to be on a long-term job, having a long-term contribution from the employer in place along with my own.

Atherlay: I have a philosophy, and I teach my deputies all the time, that the words in your agreement are as important as the words in your script. I find that Equity has always been very responsive towards me when I do call with an issue.

O’Brien: With Wicked, we get a lot of new people, new people to Equity who have just signed their first contracts. One of the things that we started on this tour: when a new person joins, we do a meeting. The company buys them dinner, and the associate company manager and my first assistant stage manager go out and explain everything about the road. Then we have a separate meeting where we talk to them about how to use their deputies. And it’s been working really well.

Bacigalupo: In the past two years or so, when I moved to New York, I joined committees and I came to membership meetings. And I think that having the knowledge is such a huge help to understand the bigger picture of what’s going on, to understand what the rulebook rules are, what the agreement is. It’s so interesting to see the reasoning behind the things in these agreements. It’s so cool what you’re doing at Wicked to explain this to people, opening up the agreement and going through it together – I just wrote that down and might steal it for the future.

*  *  *  *

[I’m a dog-lover, so I wanted to include this little sidebar to the Equity News cover article.  ~Rick] 

“HAVE DOG, WILL TRAVEL”

One of the things that makes life on the road a little easier is being able to travel with a pet.

“Right now, we’re so fortunate we can even take our dogs to the theater, like we have like six dogs at the theater every day,” said Marina Lazzaretto. “They hang out in the dressing rooms. Gandalf even has his own Cats costume. I wouldn’t tour without him. Like, I can’t imagine my life on the road without him. He brings me so much joy and like he brings so much joy to other people at the theater and at the hotel, too.”

Caring for an animal on the road can be a challenge. Once Lazzaretto found a good veterinarian in Oklahoma, so she makes a point to stop when she is in the area and take Gandalf to visit the veterinarian they’ve come to know.

Stage Manager David O’Brien drives himself from stop to stop so that he can travel with his dog, a 55-pound rescue mix. “I actually adopted him on the road,” said O’Brien. “My other dog, Charlie, was 15 and passed last year. I was without a dog on the road for about five months. Having one makes all the difference in the world to me.”

“A pet can really be the key to everything – making sure that we have the normal thread of joy in our lives,” said Christine Toy Johnson, who often travels with Joey, a six-year-old Westie. “How we navigate that, and when we find that is supported by the people we are working with – that is really just everything.”

*  *  *  *
MEET THE INTERVIEWEES

JOHN ATHERLAY

John is Production Stage Manager with The Band’s Visit. Before that he spent two years on a cruise ship. Other touring experience includes Cabaret, Blithe Spirit, Porgy and Bess, Anything Goes, Fela! and Man of La Mancha.

ANDREW BACIGALUPO

Andrew was the Production Stage Manager on the recently concluded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tour. Prior to that, he toured with Elf: The Musical, The Sound of Music and Million Dollar Quartet.

MARINA LAZZARETTO

Marina is an actor currently on the Cats tour. Before that, she toured with American in Paris, Wicked and Come Fly Away.

KEVIN MCMAHON

Kevin is chair of the Short Engagement Touring Agreement (SETA) Committee. In addition to serving as a Western Principal Councillor, he toured with Wicked for six years and with Bright Star for one year.

DAVID O’BRIEN

David has been the Production Stage Manager for Wicked on the road for seven years. Prior to that, he did 17 Broadway shows and tours of Chicago, Cats and White Christmas.

SID SOLOMON

Sid toured as an understudy on The Play that Goes Wrong. It was his first experience on a commercial tour as an Equity member. He also serves as Equity’s Eastern Regional Vice President.

CHRISTINE TOY JOHNSON

Christine is an actor on her second year of the first National/North American tour of Come From Away. Previously, she has toured with Cats, Flower Drum Song and Bombay Dreams. She is chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee and an Eastern Principal Councillor.

"Aging & Achieving: Staying Active in the Industry for Decades"

[As long as I’ve been sentient, theater people have been protesting the treatment older people in the profession have received as they age.  This has been especially, though not exclusively, true of actors, and most demonstrably of women actors.  The Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents professional stage actors and theatrical stage managers, has been trying to address this apparent inequity pretty much since it was formed.  

[The situation may be looking up.  The Winter 2020 issue of Equity News (vol. 105, iss. 1) ran an article on the progress that’s being made in an issue titled “Aging & Achieving.”  I’m posting the article on Rick On Theater as part of my occasional series about issues in the industry.  Here is Gabriela Geselowitz’s “I’m Still Here: Aging and Longevity in the Theatre.”  Geselowitz is Senior Writer and Project Manager at Actors’​ Equity.]

“I’M STILL HERE: AGING AND LONGEVITY IN THE THEATRE”
by Gabriela Geselowitz 

Marjorie Horne was about 23 when she got her Equity Card. It was for a chorus contract, earning $100 a week in summer stock in Michigan‘s upper peninsula. While rehearsing the third production of the summer, producers ran out of money, and on her very first union contract, they had to use the bond to send her home. Horne was undaunted:

“It was very clear when I was offered my card, there was no going back,” she said. “I just looked totally ahead and was there.”

That year was 1967, and now Horne is a successful stage manager and Equity councilor who has been working in the industry for over fifty years.

Theatre is for all ages, and that’s for audiences and artists alike. For those who have made their careers on or backstage, the industry isn’t just a youthful pursuit, but a lifelong occupation. Despite its reputation to the contrary, successful theatre professionals can achieve career and financial stability. Equity members in particular have access to protections that give them the freedom to age on their own terms, and stay active in the industry as senior citizens. Many actors and stage managers slow down or cease working in later years due to dwindling job opportunities, health necessity or personal desire. But some artists continue working well into their sixties, seventies or beyond.

Why keep working at an age when their peers are retiring? Do decades of experience bring the luxury to choose when and how you participate in theatre, or does the hustle last forever? Equity News spoke with several working members about aging in the theatre, changing opportunities and, for some, how the drive to make art never goes away.

“I have always thought that I wanted to do this until I die,” said actor Anita Hollander, 64.

“Actors don’t retire. Do actors retire? I’m not retiring,” asserted actor Sally Wingert, 62.

The average age of retirement in the United States is 65 for men and 63 for women, thanks in part to Social Security, though that number is likely to rise as Americans have greater difficulty acquiring the resources to stop working. Most would not likely guess that theatre actors could be among those who can choose to retire and live off a nest egg. However, Equity offers a 401(k) plan, and as members reach their 60s, they may start collecting the pension that they have been feeding through union contracts over the course of their career.

Even though Equity affords protections for members as they age, no one spoke of that as a motivation for joining the union. Some members had no idea what Equity was when they joined, and others recalled wanting to earn their card as a sign of prestige, only appreciating later the extent of the practical benefits it would afford.

“I never thought of old age,” said Delphi Harrington, 82. “Who would be called an actor and think about old age?”

“It wasn’t that I was particularly mature or thinking ahead. Certainly I was not thinking about retirement in the way that I should have been,” said Wingert. “The fact is I have told so many young performers that I’m working with currently that it is the complete and utter gift of my union to have a solvent, significant pension, and those are going the way of the dodo bird.”

“As a 62-year-old performer that knows I’m going to be using my pension within the next decade, I could not be more grateful that I joined my union when I did,” she added.

With exceptions, members can usually begin collecting on their pension at 65, and they must by age 70.5. Many Equity members belong to SAG-AFTRA as well, and may be pulling funds from multiple pensions, in addition to Social Security payouts. But finances can be a complicated, frustrating matter, as actor Dale Soules, 73, learned firsthand.

“In the years of the recession things weren’t so jolly,” she recalled. “I went to The Actors Fund and talked with them about what to do. I applied for food stamps and after difficulty reapplying for unemployment, it came through – for $67 a week.

Soules’s fortune improved, first with Hands on a Hardbody (her seventh Broadway show), and then, after a career predominantly onstage, when she became a series regular on Orange is the New Black. And then, in what she described as a “perfect financial storm,” she, by law, had to begin collecting her Equity pension and Social Security, and along with her television work this moved her to a higher tax bracket. She also took a hit from the new tax laws that limited her ability to claim deductions . . . and then got audited. During that process she received a history of her earnings under Equity contracts over 50 years, and it totaled just under $500,000 – an average of $10,000 a year.

“I would not have been able to survive a number of dry patches in my career if it weren’t for the fact I live in a rent-controlled apartment,” she admitted. “The day I can’t make the four flight walk-up things may get a little tricky but for the moment I’m still in shape and it’s like having a free gym!

“Actors often subsidize their own careers, and they subsidize the theatre,” she reflected. “But I do have that pension. And whatever I lost in taxes, even if I were to lose everything I made I would be OK. I could get by because of social security and that pension.”

Some stories are more serene. Stage manager Bob Bennett, 75, began taking his pension when it became available while continuing to work, stage managing fewer shows each season. He doesn’t want to leave the theatre, but the pension allows him to take fewer jobs and pursue other passions in his new spare time.

“It makes it possible for me to do some of the things that I might not be able to do as freely,” said Bennett, who is a long-distance hiker. “It’s one of the great benefits of our union.”

“I think it’s a huge credit to the business that I’ve not felt ageism at all,” he added, “I don’t feel it from my cast; I don’t feel it from my crew. The most I hear is, why am I still working? Because I like to. I don’t know that I’d find that in other businesses.”

Others have not been as fortunate in avoiding discrimination.

“There’s a patronizing attitude people have about aging that in some way you’re diminished,” said Harrington, who moderated an Equity panel on ageism in the theatre this past spring. “I don’t feel diminished. I feel expanded, richer, deeper, more various, stronger! I don’t like people to make assumptions about me.”

Some theatre artists have actually been denied roles based on their age.

“I’ve lost work because I was honest,” says Marjorie Johnson. She recalls an employer asking her age, and when she answered honestly, they told her they thought she was younger, and she lost the part. It is actually prohibited by federal law to discriminate against anyone 40 or older based on their age, and anyone in a similar situation should contact Equity, but Johnson no longer makes her age public.  [Respecting her wishes, I’ll only add that Johnson is in the middle of the range of ages of the Equity members interviewed here.]

“I just thought, ‘Oh, I guess I shouldn’t have said that,' and so from that point on I just don’t,” she said.

“I do think that roles are harder to find for women as we age,” added Greta Lambert, 63. “They’re not impossible, but for example my first season here [at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival] there would have been six to eight shows where I could have had a role as a young leading lady, and now there’s one show, maybe two in a year where there’s an age-appropriate role.”

“Usually directors like to hire young people and make them look older,” said Virginia Wing, 82, noting that even roles written as older characters are no guarantee.

Many professionals, however, have been surprised to find that their golden years are some of their best working ones.

“When I reached my fifties, I entered into probably the most significant decade of work that I’ve had in my life and it seems to be continuing,” said Wingert, who credits ample job opportunities in the Twin Cities, “Any given year I have worked between 35 and 60 actor work weeks.”

“Actors more than stage managers have the option of not retiring,” explained Horne, since at least some plays have characters of advanced ages that are cast appropriately. And yet, she too is still working, both new and recurring gigs like the Tony Awards.

“I’m making more money than I had ever seen in my whole life in a year. It is nuts,” she said. “I’m still putting into my pension because I’m still working on contract a couple of times a year.” 

The land of semi-retirement can be a fertile one, as members work on their own terms. For some, that means declining to take understudy roles, or a refusal to audition. Stepping away from solely acting or stage managing may also mean broadening one’s theatrical horizons, pursuing other technical work, directing, writing or teaching.

Lambert lives in Alabama, and while that meant passing on New York and the opportunities it offers, it also meant that she found an intimate home, where there’s always a way she can participate in the theatre, and where she runs into audience members at the supermarket. She has been part of the same company on and off since 1985, served as faculty for an MFA program and held titles of Director of Education, Director of Fellowship Company and Associate Artistic Director.

“I’ve had to redefine what success means for myself because it’s not about what the business tells me it’s supposed to be about” said Lambert, “For me, it’s been about playing great roles and being part of a community – not only other artists but the community I live in now.”

Lambert has also found that aging publicly, in front of an audience, can be a daunting proposition.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be willing to perform because of my own vanity, that I’ll be able to keep letting audiences watching my growth,” she confessed, “I don’t think my struggle is any different than any other person who ages. If it’s difficult it has very little to do with my business. It’s the culture of aging.”

Ernest Abuba is transitioning in the opposite direction; now retired from teaching theatre and in his seventies [he’s 73], he is looking to act more than he did when he was working at Sarah Lawrence College. (He has also worked as a director, playwright and founding member and resident artist of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre.) He thinks he may have more opportunities now, in part because fewer older working actors means less competition, and because he has seen improvements overall for actors of color.

“For many years it was all about stereotypes,” said Abuba, who has worked in the theatre for 50 years. “Now the way I look at it, the system has opened up more, it has been opening up more for the Asian American, in the last ten years or so.” An activist for better representation and an early member of Equity’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee, Abuba now hopes to enjoy some of the hard-won progress.

Even if the work opportunities are present, other complications arise as Equity members age in the business. For those struggling with health issues, the choice to keep working can be very much a privilege. Some members spoke of actor friends who had to leave the business when they could no longer memorize lines.

“As long as I’m still functioning and my brain is still functioning, I’m in it for the long haul,” said Johnson, “Thank God my memory is still intact.”

Hollander is acutely aware of how to navigate physical wellbeing and an onstage career. When she was 26, she had her leg amputated due to cancer. She was back performing on stage four weeks later, and she spoke about how working with a disability prepared her for aging in the industry.

“I was not only under pressure for how I would make a living, I was now a cancer survivor and an amputee,” she said, “I was definitely not going to ever let anything get in my way. I am aging, and I am noticing, ‘Oh my gosh, this is not easy.’ But I’ve been disabled since my twenties and working in this profession. I didn’t go into this so naïve that it wasn’t going to be difficult and painful and worrisome, but I wasn’t going to give up on that.”

Hollander is one of many members who finds she is working more now than she ever has, in part on the strength of autobiographical solo shows. However, steady work never fully addresses her concerns.

“The results are happening and the irony is, I’m still struggling to get my insurance,” she said, “This industry has been very challenging to navigate as any kind of performer, but particularly a performer with a disability – and add to that an aging performer with a disability.”

Hollander is grateful that in the 1980s she found a home in Manhattan Plaza, a federally subsidized residential complex that takes her medical expenses into account. She is also aware of The Actors Fund Home, a short and long term care facility in New Jersey, as well as other resources.

“I’m just hoping that I can be OK, but I do feel fortunate that The Actors Fund exists,” she said. “I have been working all my life and there may be a time I need help.”

Members agreed that a support network is crucial for survival in the industry long term, not only in terms of health and finances, but professionally and socially. Hollander, for example, directs as well, and she casts her peers who are also aging actors with disabilities. Horne has decades as a stage manager behind her, and that means decades of connections.

“I have good relationships with the people that I work with,” she said. “The new jobs that I’ve gotten have come from other people that I’ve worked with and their recommendations.”

“I have a group of friends that are very, very supportive of each other,” added Johnson. “I have a very strong network of performers in my age category. Even if we have the same audition, we’ll work with each other, including gathering to read opposite one another or record one another for virtual auditions."

By now, members know that a spate of good working years does not mean permanent comfort, and that a dry spell does not spell the end.

“For the last ten years I would say I’m in my retirement mode, and then the next week I’d have a job,” said Johnson, who in 2016 received critical acclaim for a leading Off-Broadway role in Dot, playing an aging woman struggling with Alzheimer’s.

Soules was optimistic, thinking that a general aging population would create a mirroring effect in the arts world. But she knows that all she can do is continue to perform as best and as long as she can.

“You never really know on what criteria you’re being judged,” she noted, “The only thing you have any control over is the work that you put into it.”

“When you love what you do,” said Harrington, “You don’t quit.”

[A note about one of the Equity members interviewed above: Marjorie Horne, the 76-year-old stage manager, is also featured in another Equity News article I posted on ROT: “Get Me to the Stage on Time,” part of “Stage Managers,” posted on 30 January 2017.  “Stage Managers” is an entry in another ad hoc series on ROT, introducing and explaining the work of performing arts jobs theatergoers seldom know much about.]

"The Art of Being Seen: Perspectives on the Casting Process"

by Doug Strassler

[As readers of Rick On Theater know, I occasionally post articles on this blog that examine aspects of theater production about which most people who aren’t in the business—whom one of my teachers used to call  “civilians”—don’t know much.  The current edition of  Equity News (Autumn 2018), the member magazine  of Actors’ Equity Association, the stage actors’ and stage managers’ union, ran a detailed article about the auditioning process.  I suppose most people with any contact with theater, even as casual audience members, know that auditioning is the sometimes intimidating procedure every actor goes through in search of acting jobs.  It’s the actor’s equivalent of a job interview, and it can be daunting and, sometimes, dispiriting.  One of the most talented actors I ever worked with—I acted with him twice and directed him twice—has never become as well-known as I believe he should have because he hates auditioning and, by his own estimation, isn’t good at it.  (I also auditioned with him when he, another actor friend, and I used a three-character scene a few times as a group audition piece.)  In other words, an audition can make or break an actor’s career.

[Members of Equity have a carefully organized  and monitored audition process and the union is always making adjustments as it gets feedback from working—or work-seeking—actors.  The union audition, known as an Equity Principal Audition, or EPA (as distinguished from an Equity Chorus Call, or ECC), is hectic and, to a novice, disorienting, but it is standard from one casting call to the next, as required by the Equity contract governing the production being cast.  (Non-union calls don’t follow the same rules and have no authority to monitor and organize them and are thus often haphazard and frustrating.)  Because it’s in the union’s interest to see that its members get jobs, a benefit of union membership is that it offers assistance and advice to members in any number of professional aspects of the business.  In this instance, the union queried a number of casting directors, the member of the production staff who usually begin the selection process, and in this article, passes the guidance and advice on to members.

[Some of what’s posted below is esoteric and “inside-baseball,” but I believe it’s mostly clear enough for the non-actor to glean some of what the auditioning process entails.  You will see a little of what an actor has to go through just to get to try out for a part.  You’ll probably find that it’s not like what’s sometimes portrayed on TV and in movies.  Just like most things about real life . . . .]

A host of casting directors and performers reflect on the casting process

“Access. Access. Access.”

That one word, in a nutshell, is what every auditioning performer longs for: the chance to be seen, at their best, in the hope of landing a role and providing for themselves. In this instance, it was uttered by Stephanie Gould, a performer with a mild form of cerebral palsy, who discussed her own path in navigating the casting process.

But this quest applies to all members who have ever walked into an audition space. Anyone who has ever been in an elevator with or walked in a hallway past someone rehearsing sides knows just how fraught and nerve-wracking the process can be. From getting an audition to getting to the audition to feeling that a casting director (CD) may not have seen enough of what someone can do, it’s a frustrating journey. Like college admissions, there can be many disappointments, as casting directors must choose from far too many performers for far too few opportunities. [. . . .]

“One time I went in for a required call for a new Broadway show,” Actors’ Equity 1st Vice President Melissa Robinette said. “I had worked for weeks before this EPA [Equity Principal Audition] for this gig. I got up at 6am; I knew I was right for it.”

Anyone who has been to an EPA probably knows what happened next. Not only did Robinette not get the job, while in the audition room she felt that the person on the other side of the table wasn’t giving her full and open consideration for the job.

“I was so angry, I went home and cried,” she remembered. But that’s not where the story ends.

“And the next day I got a callback from that audition for another Broadway show.”

This anecdote just goes to show amid all the nerves and adrenaline, it’s hard to know for sure just what the CDs across the table are seeing. A series of conversations with those on both sides of the audition room helped to shed light on the overall process.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

The casting experience doesn’t have to be an adversarial one. Many of the CDs interviewed for this article sang a similar tune, emphasizing that they really are on the side of those across the table from them.

“We do want the actor to be good so we can get behind everyone we show to our team,” Merri Sugarman, a casting director with Tara Rubin, said. “The truth is that it’s about wanting to be good at our jobs, so the creative teams are happy with our work.”

The art of creating work in the arts is actually a very delicate science, replete with scheduling logistics and keeping stakeholders happy and informed. “I’m always hopeful that performers trust our understanding of our project’s needs,” New York casting director Michael Cassara said, “and that we’re there seriously considering them with a number of variables in play. There are a lot of people who do excellent work but don’t get called back that time around due to oversaturation. I may only see six people for one role [at an invited audition], and the challenge is how can I fit everyone in? There are a lot of people who are truly brilliant who might feel rejected – but being the seventh out of thousands is not a bad place to be.”

CDs have producers, directors, sometimes choreographers and musical directors to please, meaning the invited audition space is the only time a casting director fully holds the reins. Sugarman said she will do everything she can to see performers at their best. “I work really hard on prep for the auditions,” she said. “I try to make sure there is natural light in the room, and that everyone has coffee and water. If an actor hasn’t had a chance to put his bag down, sign in and take a breath, I’ll bring someone else in, so they have time to get ready. But no matter how much you try to tell people that we are rooting for them, they don’t believe it.”

Empowering performers in the room is vital. “If I could wave a magic wand, I would make all of the performer’s fear and nerves disappear,” Eric Woodall, Producing Artistic Director at North Carolina Theatre, said. “We want actors to be their best, and that usually comes from them feeling confident and ‘in the moment.’”

Kyle Atkins, Associate Producer for Riverside Theatre, revealed that his biggest pet peeve is when performers who have scheduled an audition time do not show up. Or show up at a different time. “I get it, lives are crazy, but commitment and respect are integral,” he said. “Someone canceled twice on me and then just walked in. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’ Or if you have a 3:30 appointment but you show up at 11:10am, you have to ask the casting person is this okay.”

THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS

Casting directors are quick to discuss their overall role in the puzzle and what they do on their end to secure a safe and positive audition environment. But what exactly are they looking for from the actors who come in?

“That they would be familiar with the entirety of the piece they are auditioning for,” Justin Bohon, a casting director at Binder Casting, said, “and that they take as much time as possible to be sufficiently prepared, make strong choices about the character and that the material that they choose to sing in the room is appropriate to the piece.”

Center Theatre Group Casting Associate Andrew Lynford does his best to assuage those who audition for him. “I know people get nervous, so I do my best to chat with them and make them less nervous,” he said. “Be polite and confident, but don’t try to be funny or over-talk. We want to stay focused on you – there’s no need to shake hands with everyone.”

Honesty and punctuality are of supreme importance, but so is preparation – yet perfect practice with the wrong material can hinder a performer’s chances. “I don’t feel actors spend enough time taking apart their audition material, making intelligent, bold choices and putting it back together again,” said Mark Brandon, another casting director at Binder.

Christopher Pazdernik, Casting Associate at Chicago's Porchlight Music Theatre, echoed Brandon’s sentiment. “When we audition for classic theatre, and they come in with the latest pop hit, which won’t help me evaluate you in terms of the world of the play. That’s not to say they aren’t talented, but they are missing the mark in terms of coming in with something that will help you get cast. One season we produced shows from no later than 1964, and one actress came in and slayed, quite honestly, ‘I Know the Truth’ [from Aida]. But I didn’t know what to do with that.”

WAITING FOR THE LIGHT TO SHINE

All CDs interviewed contend that it is indeed worth the performer putting themselves out there at EPAs and at Equity Chorus Calls (ECCs). [. . . .] But do those people who put themselves on the line agree?

“Of course it is a bit more challenging and you deal with quite a bit of volume, but it is worth the investment of time,” said Western Region member Bets Malone. “I have a friend whose agent tried and tried to get her an appointment for a show, and the casting director wouldn’t give her a time because she was ‘wrong for the project.’ She went to the open call and booked the show. Perseverance is the key!”

Western Region member John San Nicolas lives in Portland and sees a different side of EPAs in the smaller cities. “EPAs seem like they are more of a perfunctory requirement sometimes begrudgingly complied with by the small number of Equity houses in town, and I think that it is a relatively rare occurrence that local actors book jobs as a result of EPAs,” he said. “Most companies have a core of people they trust that they hire over and over again, and it can feel like a real uphill battle for those on the outside looking in. EPAs can feel a little bit like a shot in the dark as a result.”

Casting directors are certainly sympathetic to the cattle call-like atmosphere of auditioning. “I appreciate that coming to open calls is a bit of a ball-ache, as we would say,” Lynford said. “It’s very easy for actors to say, ‘When I get there, it will be a bit of a scrum; I wait two hours for three minutes in the room.’ But I don’t want them to think it isn’t a worthwhile experience. One actress who had just moved from New York to Los Angeles came to a season EPA and got a role in a show at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. ‘I’m so glad I didn’t think I was above the opens,’ she said. And she is getting great work here because she came to the open and did that show.”

In New York, Cassara says that it is rare for him not to call many performers back out of an ECC or EPA. “I would say half of the shows we work on potentially have someone, or many people, who were cast when the initial audition was the EPA. Perhaps between 25 and 50 percent.”

REVIEWING THE SITUATION

Technology has certainly provided options for the casting process. Self-taping auditions has allowed increased visibility for performers regardless of where they live. “This provides me a chance to see those outside the New York community,“ Chad Murnane of Binder Casting said. “Selftaping also offers a convenience for both actors and creative teams with last-minute emergencies or busy schedules.”

Performers themselves offer a mixed take. Western Region member Idella Johnson felt that “self-tape auditions rob casting directors and directors of really getting to know an actor, and it robs actors of re-direction which gives insight on what the director may be looking for.” However, Robinette said that “auditions and callbacks via video have saved me a lot of money and stress.”

Self-tape certainly worked for San Nicolas. “A friend knew folks at Fusion Theatre in New Mexico who were looking for an actor for their production of Disgraced,” he said. “She suggested me to them and passed on my contact information. I learned a couple of scenes, sent my videos, was given adjustments and sent again. That worked out great, and we repeated the process when I returned to be in their production of Old Times.”

Lynford cautions that those who self-tape should make sure the size of their work reads as though it is for the theatre and not for film or television. “Treat it like you’re filming a theater show,” he said. “I would encourage not to do a cinematic version, or do two versions – the intimate camera version, then show me you can be a good theatre actor and be more expressive than you would be in a close-up shot.”

MAKE THEM HEAR YOU

As both a performer with a disability (she has been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis and epilepsy) and as the Development and Media Relations Manager at Addison, Texas’s WaterTower Theatre, Debbie Ruegsegger has seen the casting process from both sides firsthand. She says the most important step to remove barriers to casting of actors with disabilities is to create a dialogue, transforming the audition room into as a safe a space as possible.

“Just by asking simple questions, you can learn a lot about what certain actors have to navigate,” she said, adding that invisible disabilities such as chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis fall under that rubric as well. “Casting directors have no idea what is going on in someone else’s body – sometimes fluorescent lights made me forget everything, and they might think they I am unprepared.

“If I don’t know someone who I am auditioning for, it’s difficult to feel safe to disclose,” she continued. “We have to feel safe to ask for those accommodations. Adding that to audition notices could be a big step for theaters of letting certain communities know that they are confidential and not a deal-breaker. Many theaters are in the first steps of creating that, though we have a ways to go. Progress comes through a listening ear.”

Gould agrees that more transparency between actors with disabilities who audition and casting directors would be beneficial. “Consideration for nondisabled roles is probably the biggest challenge. We can play the girlfriend, lawyer, protagonist — anything, really. Theaters say they are looking for performers with disabilities, and then end up going with a non-disabled actor.

“But if you specifically seek out disabled talent, cast disabled talent,” she said. “I don't think people realize the amount of preparation that goes into auditioning for a disabled actor. Not just preparing sides or a monologue, but travel time – it can take us double the amount of time to get to an audition that might only last a few minutes.” (Gould credited her manager, Brandon Cohen of BAC Talent, and agent, Gail Williamson in Kazarian Measures Ruskin & Associates Diversity Department, for helping her get seen for both disabled and non-disabled roles.)

Still, times have changed. Anita Hollander, an amputee actress and National Chair of SAG-AFTRA Performers With Disabilities Committee, remembers, years ago, a Broadway casting director who “watched my monologue at an EPA, sighed aloud, and said, ‘It's a shame that you're so talented...’ The unspoken end of that sentence was ‘because I'll never be able to cast you, because you're disabled,’” she remembered. That kind of language would be shockingly out of place nowadays.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Many theaters have also increased their efforts to be more diverse and inclusive in casting, although there remains room for growth there as well. “I do feel that there aren’t many opportunities and roles for people of color,” African-American performer Idella Johnson said, while Manu Narayan, an American actor of Indian descent, said “I feel very, very fortunate that the jobs and the wonderful career that I’ve had have been against type,” and credits his persistence in attending EPAs with helping to open that door.

Equal Employment Opportunity Committee Chair Christine Toy Johnson believes that performers of color most often get hired through open calls when casting directors pursue a specific type. “Many people of color I know have actually gotten obs through open calls, and I think this is especially true when a production is looking specifically for a certain type of actor,” she said, “but I do think that people lose faith in the system, and stop going because they feel that when a show is not looking for their specific cultural background, they will not be given full consideration. Then it becomes a sort of vicious circle. They can’t be considered if they don’t go, but they get tired of going and feeling it’s a waste of their time because they’re not really being considered.”

Eastern Chorus Councillor Lauren Villegas also advises that casting directors can’t shoulder the full burden of representation. “The real root of the problem is the work getting produced,” she said. “The solution is less about the casting process and more about making sure the work being done in the industry is fully representative of the population.”

Idella Johnson agrees. “I do believe that there’s been progress, but there’s room for improvement, and that starts with screenwriters, playwrights and directors abandoning stereotypes and seeing us in roles that are normally cast or written for white people,” she said.

For their part, the casting directors interviewed here have amped up deliberate plans for greater inclusivity. “There is not a single project that we cast in our office in which one of the first conversations with the team doesn’t involve a serious and determined plan to cast as many ethnically diverse performers as possible,” Bohon said, and Murnane agreed that he, too encourages creative ethnic casting. “Our commitment to diverse casting, in every sense, is unwavering,” Woodall said. “We encourage our creative teams to cast in progressive and contemporary ways and encourage all actors to be submitted.”

“Our programming strives to be diverse and inclusive, but then, with each production we strive to make sure that directors are presented an inclusive group of potential hires at both the idea and audition phases of each process,” Adam Belcuore, Managing Producer at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, said. “In an effort to invest in the Chicago casting community we have hosted the Casting Society of America open call for actors with disabilities, as well as other local casting calls that specifically provide opportunities to under-represented talent.”

While steps have been taken to create greater accessibility and inclusiveness in the casting process, work remains to be done. Robinette cautions those with the power to cast to make sure they embrace inclusion, not tokenism. Still, both sides agree that the more performers get seen, the likelier they are to get cast.

“Even for required calls where I have heard they ‘aren’t looking,’” Robinette said, “I have had some awesome wins of getting called in for other things from those auditions or even being cast in other projects just because I was allowed to go in and remind them I’m alive.”

From the other side of the table, Lynford agrees. “It really is worth it and people have had great results doing EPAs,” he said. “Please keep bringing your talent to my door.”

*  *  *  *

STAGE MANAGERS OFFER ADVICE: NETWORK! Actors hope that through auditioning, they can create positive relationships with casting directors. Stage managers also recommend building up a stable cadre of friends in the industry:

“Shadow stage managers and have coffee with PSMs [production stage managers] on big shows. Talk about how they got where they are and what their career trajectory was.” —ERIN MAUREEN KOSTER

“Never let fear stand between you and seeking professional stage managers for advice. Observing the work of our colleagues enriches a formal education.” —AMANDA SPOONER

[Doug Strassler is the editor of Equity News.  He writes and podcasts frequently about film, theater, television, literature, and other realms of pop culture.]