Tuesday, April 28, 2015

99-Seat Theaters to Pay Minimum Wage

National leaders of Actors' Equity Assn. on Tuesday imposed a $9 hourly minimum wage for members who perform in Los Angeles County theaters with fewer than 100 seats...
The minimum wage for rehearsals and performances will take effect June 1, 2016, for scores of theater companies that already work under the 99-Seat Theater Plan. For decades that plan has required only token payments for actors when they perform - and nothing when they rehearse.
New producers who want to hire union actors will have to start paying the minimum wage immediately.
Backers of the wage hike argued that acting deserves the dignity of a minimum wage, and union leaders said they were responding to complaints from the L.A. rank and file about poor pay

(from Actors' Equity imposes $9 minimum wage on L.A.'s 99-seat theaters).

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this posted by David August at 3:14 PM - 0 comments -  

Saturday, April 18, 2015

David in Bring the Funny screening in festival

See Bring the Funny, which David is in and wrote,
screen as an official selection at Cloud City,
85 N 1st St, Brooklyn, NY 11249 [google map]
at 9pm, Saturday, April 18, 2015.

Bring the Funny was produced for the same show that produced
Corporate Dialects, which David is in and wrote as well.

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this posted by David August at 8:06 AM - 0 comments -  

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

When Words Don't Work

Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the lines. They give such a nice structure, a cushion, almost like a blanket. Scripts are nice that way. Plays and screenplays are good, constant, acting companions. When in doubt, reach for the blanky and it will make everything better.

It often does. When words are in the right place, the character can be found, sussed out, accessed through the text. What is said is, after all, an extension of the character's wants.

But sometimes, if for no other reason but to change it up (or if the text is not as strong as it might be), maybe we should find what to do without words. What if your character couldn't speak, what then? Instantly I can imagine the stakes feeling higher, need more desperate, and as tactics constrict, pushing against the wordless trap could intensify or even clarify things.

What isn't said? What can't be said? What won't be said, and screams its silence. These are moments of both drama and comedy that we all live, and know. When inexplicably you simply couldn't say, "I love you, don't go," so they did go. When somehow the shock, or shame, or something else that defies articulation defined an instant, and then echoed into a string of days to promise a life of incomprehensible regret. These instances, small and big, where words simply didn't come or couldn't do justice are just as much part of our character's arc and life as the things they utter.

It is not just acting between the lines. It is letting the person live and breathe, during which they may happen to have something said to or by them. The uncertainty of letting go of the blanky, that is sometimes where our work lies. It lies there, where the truth lives.

At least that is what my midday Wednesday musings tell me. Break a leg out there.

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this posted by David August at 1:45 PM - 0 comments -