Surviving on Broadway

«God, I hope I get it. I hope I get it. How many people does he need?»  So begins the Broadway musical A Chorus Line. The show that was first conceived when a group of actors who had sung and danced in Broadway musicals got together to tape record what had brought them to the stage. From that starting point, a loose plot evolved weaving those personal experiences into a chorus audition for a Broadway musical. Many of the actors whose stories had gone into the script appeared in the original 1975 production that began Off Broadway and transferred to The Great White Way the same year. It became a phenomenal hit.
When the musical was revived on Broadway in 2006, a documentary, titled Every Little Step, was made of the casting process. The film ups the ante with additional meta-actors auditioning to play the parts of actors auditioning. As an actor, myself, this presentation caused a fair amount of pain. The intense desire to get the job, to be chosen, to make it, was all on the screen. I know that one can’t put all one’s hopes on an audition, rejection is part of the game, but something about watching the actors pull out all the stops to score their Broadway debut hit me at my core.
I was living in San Francisco when I first began working as an actor straight out of high school. Broadway was 3,000 miles away. Within a few years of working professionally I joined the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), the union for stage actors. To become a member of the union you either had to work 50 non-consecutive weeks as a non-union performer at an AEA approved theater; or said theater could also hand you a contract if they wanted to, and unionize you on the spot. When I was able to make most of my living as a stage actor in the last four years that I lived in San Francisco, I figured it was time to go to the next level. So I moved to New York in 2008. Broadway wasn’t necessarily on my mind. Just something bigger.

Facts and figures

For a large country we have a relatively small number of professional stage actors. The total number in the union, released by the AEA’s «Equity News» this past December, was 43,461. Of those, 18,588 live in New York City. Los Angeles comes in second with 7,375 professional stage actors. (Most actors in L.A. aspire to work in film and TV.). San Francisco has only 979. These numbers also include professional stage managers who are equal partners in the union, though they receive different contracts and have different job descriptions. You can also add to these numbers non-union actors who do, at times, compete for the same jobs.
There are more jobs in New York than San Francisco, but the number of actors competing for them far outweighs that advantage. My years as a working actor in San Francisco was an exception as the average unemployment rate of the 43,461 professional actors in the US is actually 57.2%. The average amount of weeks worked is only 16.7 a year. In sadder news, this is the norm. Ten years ago, 44.1% of AEA members were working an average of 16.4 weeks a year.
The union doesn’t give actors work, but it provides support to members once they are working and maintains contracts with professional theaters that mandate standard pay and employment for union members. That said, upon moving to New York City I was advised to go to the Actors Equity Building on 46th Street and 7th Avenue in the heart of Times Square where Broadway theaters twinkle all around. Here I could sign up for Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs) and start to audition for the big time. EPAs can be open casting calls for specific roles, membership in an ensemble or chorus, or general auditions for a theater company’s season. This includes Broadway productions. There is generally an EPA to attend 5 days a week and actors fill up the time slots. Unfortunately, they are far from being a good pathway to a part. AEA mandates that certain theaters hold these auditions for the union members. Rarely are they voluntary. Hence many theater companies have no faith in EPAs. Their underlings attend them out of obligation to the union. The one major exception to this are auditions for chorus members, in which open calls, like the ones in the documentary Every Little Step, can often lead to real work. Too bad I don’t sing or dance.

The role of the drama school

Casting for principal roles is traditionally done by a casting director. They are the ones who post what are called «breakdowns» (a listing and description of available roles for a project) and then screen the incoming submissions for actors to audition. To make sure the casting director is not flooded by thousands of head shots and resumes, they generally limit submissions to those coming from casting agents or managers. They are the one who serve as the middlemen between the production and the actor. Occasionally, an actor can find a way to submit directly to a casting director, but rarely does that do anything for you unless the casting director is already aware of your work.
Casting agents or managers help you get the audition, and, if you get the role, they will also handle your contract. And take a cut – 10% for an agent, 15% for a manager. If, however, they are actively submitting you for projects and, for whatever reason, you are not getting the jobs, they end up doing a lot of work for no pay. It follows that they tend to be selective about who they take on.
A whole service industry helps actors break into the business by introducing them to agents, casting directors, and directors. Monthly subscriptions to websites, such as CastingNetworks.com, ActorsAccess.com, and the trade magazine Backstage, offer online services for submission to projects – at a cost of course. For ways to meet people in the industry, there are organizations such as The Network, Actors Connection, and One on One. These offer «seminars» or «sessions» with casting directors and agents, and while these sessions can be very informative, they can also feel like paid auditions. All this can appear like a con game that preys on actors who are looking for work, but without these services most actors have no way of securing auditions for most jobs. «Pay to play,» is a truism.
To better prepare you for auditions or «seminars» or even once you get the job, there is no shortage of acting schools. In New York City there are established studios such as the Strasberg School, T. Schreiber Studio, The Barrow Group (where I attended a year long program), among many others. In addition, «Master Classes» with established coaches pop up constantly. Prices vary for these, but you can expect somewhere around $100 per class to start with.
Another way into the business can be through graduate school. If nothing else, it will give you a firm foundation in your craft. Most programs are around three years of intensive and immersive study. Schools like Juilliard, Yale, and NYU have long running industry connections and big movie star alumni. These schools almost all have showcases at the end of their tutelage in New York and L.A. where agents and managers vie to represent the cream of the crop. The only trouble with these schools is the debt the actors incur. Most of these schools cost tens of thousands of dollars a year in tuition and allow little or no time for students to earn money while enrolled in them.
And with all of this extra help and preparation, nothing is guaranteed. There are scores of unemployed actors in New York with graduate degrees, just as there are plenty of actors rocketing to success who may have had an industry connection, or were at the right place at the right time with the right talent.

But what is success?

If you want to talk the top of the field, as far as theater in the United States goes, it is Broadway. As gaudy as it can feel to me to walk through the Times Square with its Broadway flash, it is the only place in the US that gives live theater this much attention or regard. But not only does it have all that history, glamor, and prestige, it also offers the paycheck. Broadway happens to make up 46.49% of the total earnings of all those working actors nationwide.
The average weekly paycheck of an actor in a «Production» contract (the AEA contract for Broadway shows) is $2,530. So, let’s do some math. Say you are one of the 42.8% of working actors who is working the average number of weeks (16.7) and making approximately that amount in a Broadway show. You are a stage actor at the top of your field and you are earning $42,251 a year! Minus taxes. Minus union dues (2.25%). Minus the 10–15% you pay to your agent. Do you quit your day job?
Waiting tables, catering, temporary office jobs, personal assistants are many standard actor jobs which provide flexibility if an audition or gig happen to come up. Many stage actors also do cross over to film, television, and commercial jobs (which tend to compensate at a higher rate), but these involve another union (SAG-AFTRA) and in many cases a separate agent to represent you.
But that is not what the characters talk about in A Chorus Line. There is no cynicism. The paycheck is not why the actors do it. They want to dance like fire across that stage, sing in chorus, and make the audience rise up in thunderous applause. It is «what I did for love» as the characters sing near the end of the show. Actors need to act. And that is probably why watching Every Little Step scared me a little. Our fears, our hopes, our dreams, and desires, are all out there--yearning to work, praying for an audience. Even though all the odds are against us, we give it our all knowing that, more than likely, we will fail.
Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?
One way not to lose is to not play the game. There a scores of theater companies started by actors in order to give themselves the opportunities they were not getting through auditioning, and I am a member of one. A Chorus Line started in a room full of actors just telling their stories, and now I continue to act for the love of it, but also write plays for myself to perform in out of necessity. They may not end up on Broadway, or they may, but I can tell my stories and not «hope to get it!». I know I already have it.    ●

Zac Jaffee is an actor and writer living in New York. His is the author of the award winning play, Heroes and Other Strangers, and a frequent collaborator with Amios Theater Company. More at www.zacjaffee.com.