How does budget size affect representation?

Women were still less represented in the highest paying jobs as playwrights and union actors.

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As in the previous report, I considered the type of Actors’ Equity contract used by theater companies as a means to examine employment by budget size.  While Actors’ Equity is the union for actors and stage managers, and sets rates for their salaries, the salaries for directors and playwrights often fall in line with what an actor is paid.  The theaters in the Bay Area that pay the highest salaries to actors are also the ones that have the largest overall budgets and highest profiles.  So, although I am not able to divide by budget size, dividing by type of contract has a similar effect.

I divided the data into the same three contract types as in Not Even:

• NonUnion/Union Code: Nonunion shows do not use Equity actors. Pay rates can vary wildly, but artists are typically offered a stipend. Union Codes allow Equity actors to work without benefit of contract. Like nonunion shows, pay rates can vary significantly, but all artists on union code projects typically receive some kind of stipend. We have two union codes available for use in the Bay Area: the Bay Area Project Policy (BAPP) and the Member Production Code (MPC). Both have limits on rehearsal hours, size of theatre, total number of performances and more. The BAPP stipulates that no one can be paid more than the Equity actors, so other artists working on BAPP productions receive a stipend that is equal to or less than the union members’ stipend. The MPC is used by Equity members to produce their own work, and is not available to theatre companies. The MPC has no required stipend.
• Equity Contract without Health Weeks: These lower level Equity contracts require that the actor is paid a weekly salary, but do not require the producer to contribute additional money to Actors’ Equity’s health care fund. A union actor working on this level of contract will not gain any eligibility for union health care coverage. Pay rates here are between $240 – $275/week for the union actor. Nonunion actors working on these types of contracts may receive a stipend or a weekly salary depending on the company. In the Bay Area, these contracts include: Modified Bay Area Theatre Agreement (MBAT) Tier 1 only, Special Appearance Agreement (SA), Theatre for Young Audiences Agreement (TYA) per performance contract only.
• Equity Contract with Health Weeks: When an Equity contract includes health weeks, it means that for each week the actor works, the producer not only pays their salary, but also makes a contribution to the Actors’ Equity health care fund. Actors who work enough weeks in a year at theatres that offer health weeks are eligible for union health care coverage. Salary minimums for these contracts can range between $250-$1000/week. The health care contribution is an additional $160-$170/week. Not all of these contracts allow for nonunion actors to work on the same show as union actors, but when they do, the nonunion actors can be paid a stipend or a weekly salary. These contracts include: Modified Bay Area Theatre Agreement (MBAT) Tier 2 only, Bay Area Theatre Agreement (BAT), Guest Artist Agreement (GA), Letter of Agreement (LOA), League of Resident Theatres Agreement (LORT), Theatre for Young Audiences Agreement (TYA) weekly contract only.

For additional details about Actors’ Equity contracts, please visit the Actors’ Equity website at www.actorsequity.org, but please note that the Rulebooks Library is no longer available to non-members.

After sorting the data from the current crop of 605 shows, here were some of the most interesting trends:

• Women playwrights had only 3 of 10 productions at the highest tier, and 3.5 of 10 productions at the lowest tier.
• Women directors worked in equal proportions at the lowest and highest tier, which was still less than half of the available jobs.
• Non-union men and women worked at near parity to each other in all 3 tiers.
• Union women worked the least at the highest tier, dropping to just over 4 of 10 union jobs at that level. At the two lower tiers, they took over half the union jobs.
• At the highest tier, the job imbalance suggests that union contracts are biased towards male actors. The number of union women actors (613 artists) is not only significantly smaller than the numbers of union men actors working (864 artists) but also smaller than the numbers of non-union women (669 artists) and non-union men (643 artists).
• Non-binary artists were only represented in the lowest tier as playwrights and directors, and while seen in all three tiers as non-union actors, they were mostly at the lowest tier.

It’s also worth noting that there are 321 union shows with health weeks and 45 union shows without health weeks. So although women had majority representation in the without health weeks category for directors and union and non-union actors, this still represents less than 10% of the total shows in the overall data set.

	Non-Union/Union Code 236 shows	Union Shows No Health Weeks 45 shows	Union Shows with Health Weeks 321 Shows
Women Playwrights	35% 133 artists	45% 28 artists	30% 139 artists
Men Playwrights	64% 239 artists	55% 34 artists	70% 330 artists
Trans Playwrights	1% 4 artists	0% 0 artists	0% 0 artists
Women Directors	44% 146 artists	57% 29 artists	44% 184 artists
Men Directors	56% 184 artists	43% 22 artists	56% 233 artists
Trans Directors	<1% 1 artist	0% 0 artists	0% 0 artists
Women Union Actors	54% 68 artists	57% 64 artists	43% 613 artists
Men Union Actors	46% 57 artists	43% 53 artists	57% 864 artists
Trans Union Actors	0% 0 artists	0% 0 artists	0% 0 artists
Women Non-Union Actors	49% 873 artists	51% 73 artists	51% 669 artists
Men Non-Union Actors	50% 878 artists	47% 67 artists	49% 643 artists
Trans Non-Union Actors	1% 16 artists	2% 3 artists	<1% 6 artists

Table 3: Women were still less represented in the highest paying jobs

How does this data compare to the Not Even data?

Though not at parity, women artists have increased representation in almost every category, including highest paying jobs.

At the highest paying level, more women are working as directors, playwrights and actors, and proportions have increased as well, by as much as 7%.

The ‘glass proscenium’ may still exist, but may be getting thinner.