LIVE AUCTION ITEMS INCLUDE:

War Horse package: Tickets, Backstage Tour, and Visit with cast members after the performance

Project Runway Final Taping: Get premium seats to the final taping of the Season

SILENT AUCTION ITEMS INCLUDE:

Chateau Julien Tour & Tasting
Trapeze lessons from LAVA dance company
Dinner at DYLAN Prime
Wicked Tickets and Backstage Tour
A 2-hour Interior Design consultation
A week at a privately owned Chatham Country House during ski season
A Coach bag
Yankees AND Mets Tickets
One of a kind jewelry...

...AND MUCH MORE!

We hope to see you on March 5 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, for Contemporary Art

Epic Theatre Ensemble was founded in 2001 on the principle that theatre-makers are essential. That their skills are critical to catalyzing dialogue on vital social and civic issues. That the empathy they help foster, and the imagination they excite, and the rigorous thinking they engage, are all things active citizens need. So it’s not a surprise that we’ve always tried to find ways to get artists into the places they are needed most – into communities that are disadvantaged, and disenfranchised, and disconnected from the role theatre could play in their recovery; into schools saddled with cultures of low expectations; into productions that tackle complex and often intractable challenges that our country struggles with. It’s always been fundamental to our values that the same artists work in our classrooms as on our stages.

We’ve always aimed to pay these artists well above what’s considered the minimum, or even “standard.” We paid actors $260/week on our first Off-Broadway production in our founding season (2001-02); our budget that first year was about $260,000. So on a 10-week contract, which is what we were shooting for on average, an actor was getting about 1% of the total organizational budget (and because we did extensive work in schools and communities from day one, production was only about half of our budget). I followed this as a kind of secret rule-of-thumb for many years thereafter; five years later, when we were a $600,000/yr. organization and producing Nilaja Sun’s NO CHILD…, we were paying actors $450/week. But recently, for a variety of reasons, we began to abandon that ratio, and by 2010 (our biggest season to date, including a production of Sarah Ruhl’s PASSION PLAY), we were looking at a $1.2 million budget and actor salaries were barely increasing.

So, we’re making an economic correction. For this season we’re in now, Epic has condensed almost all of our extensive Off-Broadway, new play development, AND in-school and after-school educational programming this season into one 20-week period, from January to June 2011. What this enables us to do is hire a full-time actor ensemble, 42 hours/week at $900/week, which is higher than the highest non-commercial minimum of any contract in NYC. The actors rehearse, perform, teach, and develop new work together all under a single umbrella contract with Actor’s Equity. Half are on a 20-week contract (including one Stage Manager) and they get a year of health insurance to follow; the other half work in a more concentrated timeline, at 12-weeks (including an additional Stage Manager), with 6 months of health insurance to follow. We think it may be the first of it’s kind in our contemporary era of union/producer relations, and it harkens back to that old “ensemble” idea that everyone in our field seems to dimly remember.

I can’t help but mention here what we’re DOING artistically on this contract briefly here – I am the Executive Director of a struggling not-for-profit, after all! We’re producing MACBETH Off-Broadway in a production sponsored by the NEA’s Shakespeare for a New Generation to reach 1,500 High School students, directed by Ron Russell, and featuring Epic favorites James Wallert, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Lori Parquet, Aime Kelly, Devin Haqq, Scott Kerns, and Melissa Friedman as Lady Macbeth. We’ve got two “Prototype Productions” of Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. and Brandt Adams’ DISPATCHES FROM (A)MENDED AMERICA and Jeanne Sakata’s HOLD THESE TRUTHS, both about racial identity in America, which will then be produced in repertory in Fall 2012 in the month leading up to the Presidential election. In development, we’ve got workshops of Keith Josef Adkins’ SUGAR AND NEEDLES and Michael Brandt’s FLOOD, as well as 7 new commissions (that’s right – seven!), including Nilaja Sun’s new solo piece and 4 short plays for our Spotlight: Human Rights Initiative by Dominique Morrisseau, Heather Raffo,Ken Urban, and Stefanie Zadravec, in conjunction with the Center for International Human Rights at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We’re in-residence in four key partner High Schools across the city, sequentially serving every student every year, and each of these schools has an after-school Shakespeare Remix production program, that will culminate in four student/professional productions. And almost all of this work will be done by a core group of 10 amazing artists, providing hundreds of hours of in-school instruction and reaching thousands of young people and adult audiences.

For Epic, it’s really an extension of a core piece of our belief in taking responsibility for increasing the value of theatre artists in our society. And Actor’s Equity was quite responsive to the idea, which might surprise some people. I, too, was a little nervous to ask for a contract that embraced both Off-Broadway and teaching, but was impressed by their flexibility (special shout out here to Francis Jue and Michele Kelts, who steered the development and approval of the contract in different ways). But now that we’ve gotten there together, it seems self-evident to me: AEA is a union, after all; if we can offer their members better money in a reasonable work environment with health insurance guaranteed, why wouldn’t they want to give it a try? Neither side had to sacrifice much – we kept clauses like “More Remunerative Employment” intact to make sure people could take TV work now that there are 28 shows in NYC, and AEA gave us a certain number of lower-salary “guest” contracts for actors who won’t teach.

After this pilot year, our goal is to build two separate 12-20 week contract periods, one in Fall 2012 and one in Spring 2013, and use double the number of actors. As we build, we’ll turn our attention to creating similarly supportive contracts for writers, directors, and designers. By the way, participation in the artistic ensemble is not guaranteed to a single group of individuals: everyone from our diverse group of artistic associates has to audition for each contract, and we’ll always have significant auditions for those who are not yet our associates. I say this to address the idea that an “ensemble” has to be “permanent” to be meaningful, and the concerns that follow about strength of artistry over time. No one will have to make long-term promises in order to participate, and that’s better for both the artists and the organization. But of course it’s harder that way. And it’s not cheap. We’re paying more than we would if we kept paying Off-Broadway and Teaching Artist work separately. But in any intractable situation – which this issue of artist salaries has become – someone often has to take a radical, risky step in order to re-shape the conversation. Because Epic believes that in the American theatre, our artists are our stock in trade, we’re willing to engage in radical risk to increase their value.

The next blog in the series, Chapter 1: “Why Are Theatre Artists Essential?,” will take a look at what the true value of theatre-makers is, or could be, in today’s America.

You can follow this blog here, on our Facebook page or on Ron's Tumblr Blog.
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You can read this blog here, follow it on our Facebook page, or read it on Ron's Tumblr Blog.

Theatre-makers in America undeniably work in an embattled field. Artists face low salaries, inconsistent opportunities, and the difficulties any freelance American worker must manage apropos of health insurance, retirement, and child-rearing. The organizations that employ them face cuts, conundrums (e.g. as government funding levels decrease annually, their compliance and reporting requirements for not-for-profits increase, requiring us to spend a higher percentage of declining dollars on administration), and competition for audiences’ time and attention from forms that are increasingly more convenient, accessible, and affordable.

Almost every non-commercial production “loses” money in commercial parlance – very seldom does anyone make more at the box office that they spent on artistic, marketing, and administrative costs components – so artistic leaders are, de facto, looking for what to cut. More often than not, artists’ salaries and benefits CAN be cut: we all know by now that most theatre artists’ will work for minimum wage and that their union will consent. So that’s the first place cuts are made, often to the point that artists are more or less subsidizing the work of the organization by accepting less than a living wage. And I don’t know anyone in our field who’s really happy with that.

But when we discuss the reasons we’re in this position solely in terms of money – which generally leads to an argument about whose fault it is that none of us have enough - we often miss the bigger contextual picture, and a much more complex set of challenges, regarding artists’ value in our society.

The low salary problem is just one bullet point of a much bigger problem of low perceived value: too many Americans don’t see theatre artists as vital to improving their quality of life. This blog series will explore why that’s happening and what we can all do to change it. But we’ll have to start with a pretty elementary mental shift (and by we I mean everyone in our field, from artists to producers to funders): we’ll have to stop believing in, and working in accordance with, a “scarcity principle” regarding opportunities, audiences, and money.

In economics, the scarcity principle focuses on how an insufficiency of goods that have high demand can drive up prices for these goods beyond the natural equilibrium, such that only the wealthiest can afford them. The scarcity principle we suffer under is sort of the reverse. Because we don’t sufficiently cultivate demand for our goods, we’ve gotten focused on competing for scarce opportunities and constituencies; this culture of competition has slowly led us to believe that it’s our only possible “business model” (and this applies equally to artists, leaders, and funders).

There’s a great exchange in J. B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways (the first play Epic produced Off-Broadway!), in which the conservative Ernest and the socialist Madge argue about labor strikes in England in 1919:

Ernest: The working class is out for itself. Then why shouldn’t the
middle class be out for itself?
Madge: The middle class must have already been successfully out
for itself or it wouldn’t be a comfortable middle class. Then
why turn against the working class when at last it tries to
look after itself?
Ernest: That’s easy. There’s only so much to go ‘round, and if you
take more, then I get less.
Madge: I’m sorry, but that’s bad economics as well as bad ethics.

Who among us in our field hasn’t felt what Ernest articulates? That there’s a lack of artistic opportunities, or funding sources, or potential audiences, and that we have to put our resources towards competing for those that already exist, rather than toward trying to build new ones? But as Madge points out, it’s just bad business. A business that fails to actively create demand for its’ product, and just relies on historical demand – unless it sells something like milk – will swiftly lose significance. So the economic side of this thing is just common sense, self-protection, even, and there’s lots of easy solutions that can be employed to shift this paradigm toward the development of new audiences, opportunities, and funds, which this blog will explore in later Chapters.

The ethical side of things is a lot more controversial, I think. I’m not going to say much about it here, but I’ll try to develop an argument for the ethical importance of increasing artist value over the next few blogs. But let me ask a question. Most of us cringe when an American corporation moves operations to a country where much lower salaries can be paid for the same quality of work. Most of us know that this kind of practice is bad for both the country the corporation has left and ultimately the one it has entered, even if those workers have freely consented. We know how crippling this lack of investment in local resources has been to the quality of life of middle- and working-class American families. Sure, these corporations do it for profit, but here’s my question: really, how is it any “less bad” to underpay our workers for artistic and educational profit than for financial profit? We can’t expect these corporations to take any kind of moral or ethical stand on this issue, obviously; but have we gotten to the point where we no longer expect it from ourselves?

The next blog in the series, the Prologue, “A New Contract,” will focus on how Epic is attempting to address some of these challenges, through a new contract with Actor’s Equity Association for the 2011-12 season.

If you've just experienced the magic of Sarah Ruhl's PASSION PLAY, you must have questions, emotions, concerns, moments and other thoughts about it, and we want to hear them all. Here's a place for you to continue the conversation you had on your way out the door, tell us what resonates with you, and see what other people are sharing about their experience with PASSION PLAY.

We welcome positive and critical responses, so let's follow the guidance of a wise fellow blogger and only say things you'd feel comfortable saying face to face. And we'd love to know who you are, so include your name if you're comfortable!

Some questions to get you started (feel free to answer one, some, all, or make up your own):

• What moment or image from the play still resonates with you?
• When have you lost faith in something you strongly believed in, and how did you respond to that loss?
• What role does art play in your faith or religious practices?
• Which character(s) did you relate to most, and how so? Did you resent any of the characters at some point? Why?
• Have you ever felt that an institution or government tried to change your beliefs to fit its agenda?
• How did the physical space of Irondale Center impact your experience of PASSION PLAY? 
• If you stayed for the talk-back, what did you learn more about? What did you want to say but didn't have the chance to express?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and continuing the dialogue - if you haven't seen the play yet, there's still time! Purchase tickets here.

I'd been sitting bathroom duty downstairs in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church basement making sure the male actors who are utilizing those restrooms didn't accidentally set off the church alarms -- and suddenly the fire alarms sounded, sending me into a slightly confused panic, collecting my things, to find that the theater upstairs had quickly emptied. It wasn't a door alarm, no -- it was a smoke alarm, reacting to a fog cue gone awry. "Is it raining outside?" I heard someone ask behind me on the way downstairs to the front exit. As the door opened, I heard what sounded like sheets of rain smacking the pavement, but quickly realized that it was actually thunderous applause from an audience giddy to watch the committed actors generously continue their scene outdoors.

The irony of the scene was perfect: "I don't know if I can play this moment without the arc of the whole play," was the line delivered by Hale Appleman, the shirtless young actor playing the actor who plays Jesus in the scene (it makes sense when you see it):

Watch the video: "'Passion Play,' Outdoors"

The alarms quieted about fifteen minutes later, so the stage manager shepherded us back inside to finish the final scenes of the play. "The generosity of these people!" one audience member commented to me on our way back to the cozy indoors, referring to the underdressed actors, "I'm crying." 

It was a magical way to start the run of this NY Premiere of Sarah Ruhl's most ambitious play, and Epic's most complicated production in its nine seasons. Up in the dressing room later on, the actors chattered about the excitement of the final act, agreeing that it was a perfect fit with the play's themes of community, theater, and allowing real life to collide with stage. 

After the show, I heard cast member Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. comment on the experience to fellow cast mates. "This," he said, "is what the play all about."

The Passion Coalition Festival kicked off on March 23 with "Passion Action," a Fort Greene community event at the Irondale Center where local artists and residents shared songs, spoken word, live music, readings and discussion about devotion, faith and religion. We had a performance by the Lafayette Inspirational Ensemble perform two moving songs accompanied by a pianist, readings from WIDOWER'S HOUSES performed by Jacob Ming-Trent, James Wallert, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. and Darci Fulcher, performances on the harmonica and guitar by Seth & Asher Baumrin, a sneak peek at James Wallert's new musical SAVE EL CIDa spoken word piece by Velez Moore and a scene from Epic's upcoming production of Sarah Ruhl's PASSION PLAY, performed by Hale Appleman and Kate Turnbull.