Act for change

Look for the union label

The counterargument to this is that it’s much less prohibitive for a company to adopt Equity contracts in Chicago than in New York or LA. The entry-level “Tier N” CAT contract is intentionally “very gentle,” in the words of Kathryn Lamkey, Equity’s central region director. “Unless someone is really the smallest or newest ensemble company,” she says, they should be able to afford a contract or two under Tier N, and the next two tiers are each very small steps up. A Showcase Code or something like it would be a disincentive for companies to take those first steps.

In fact, no one expects the smallest and newest companies to be able to pay Equity wages. While much of the sniping on the blogs centered on some pro-union individuals calling non-Equity performers “non-professionals,” Lamkey prefers to call them “pre-union.”

In individual conversations with some Equity actors, their ire seemed to be reserved for theater companies that have existed for many years, sometimes decades, without adopting Equity contracts. Working with six-figure budgets and receiving sizable foundation grants, without making even a gesture toward compensating the onstage talent, smacks of exploitation to some.

Model behavior

The fabled Steppenwolf producing model has become—through the fault of no one in particular—a romantic, Utopian fantasy template. It’s understandable why so many young companies want to shape themselves in its image. But the odds of another unknown acting ensemble starting from scratch and coming up through the system to achieve international luster in the same way are significantly smaller now that so many reigning Equity companies already dot the landscape. When Malkovich and Morton’s generation came on the dinner theater-dominated scene, after all, the city was theirs for the taking. And, from a marketplace standpoint, they’re still taking it.

It’s impossible to know what 21st-century Chicago theater will look like, but the new dominant innovators will be the ones who understand how to make not just original stage works but original business models. Natural selection will favor producers—not just necessarily nonprofit companies—who can provide a financial incentive for artists to practice their craft, while creating dynamic, adult theater for contemporary Chicagoans. If the next generation of Chicago theater makers can figure out how to do both, they can act to make change, rather than simply acting for change.