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Equity

SMArts: The Apprentice Stage Manager

May 30th, 2010
by Lois.
2 comments

This is the fourth post in a series of five about my experience at the SMArts conference in Vancouver. I’ve essentially taken my notes and turned them into these posts.  You can find my previous posts on Calling a show, the CTA agreement & the conference in general by clicking on those links.

One of the sessions that I attended was on being an equity apprentice and eventually joining. I have far fewer notes from that session because my focus at the time was asking questions and discussing specific situations. Here are the few notes that I did take that might be valuable to others contemplating whether joining Equity is going to be the right choice for them.

The benefits of joining equity:

  • Health Benefits
    • chiropractor, massage, acupuncture, etc
    • Disability up to one year
    • Death & dismemberment insurance
    • benefits are in effect starting one week before the contract starts until the contract end date.
  • RRSP
    • automatically deducts a percentage from each week’s pay towards retirement.
  • Other benefits include access to all areas of the equity website, magazines, political advocacy, & other equity publications
  • Equity maintains an availability list of stage managers which is provided to theatre’s looking for someone.

Costs of joining Equity

  • Cost of apprentice credits ($62.50 each for stage management, $112.50 each for actors)
  • Dues
  • a percentage from each paycheque
  • You cannot work on any non-Equity contracts

SMArts: The CTA & Stage Management

May 20th, 2010
by Lois.
2 comments

If you’re reading this post, I’m going to assume that you know at least a little bit about how the Canadian theatre system works, who Equity is, etc. If you’re looking for more information on that, I’m probably not the most qualified to answer the questions, but I’m happy to point you the right direction.

The Canadian Theatre Agreement (CTA) is the equity agreement that governs any production by a member company of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT). In BC this is everyone from Pi Theatre to the Vancouver Playhouse to Touchstone to Carousel. Within the CTA there are regulations for everything from how many hours a day you can rehearse to under what circumstances someone can be fired to how to deal with on-stage nudity.

As a stage manager, your job is to not apply the CTA when you don’t know what the answer is. The association has the responsibility to answer questions and get back to you with an answer. It is equity’s job to intercede if people are unhappy with the solution that’s been reached

Ultimately the theatre is responsible for the behaviour of their organization and you are their EMPLOYEE. It is the management that holds the financial and moral obligation to everyone within their employ.

A little bit of general information about the CTA:

  • It’s a scale agreement rather than a collective agreement
    • This means that it negotiates the bottom of how a theatre will work. It says “You cannot be paid any less than $XXX.XX.” “You cannot work any more than XX hours/day.” It does not stop you from negotiating a higher rate of pay, less hours/day, better benefits, etc.
  • Equity regulates the working conditions for Stage Managers, Directors, Fight Directors, Choreographers & Performers in Theatre, Opera & Dance.
  • There are 21 different agreements & policies of which the CTA is the bread and butter of the theatre agreements and is a fully professional agreement.

The CTA, like other Equity agreements is broken down so that it is easier to search. First it is divided into Articles which are large subjects/overarching areas. These are marked with a single number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc). Article 63 is Stage Management. Within those Articles it is divided into clauses which are marked by the number, a colon and then another number (63:01, 63:02, etc). And then within the clauses it breaks down into sub-clauses & sub-sub-clauses.

When you run into an issue and are turning to the CTA for guidance it is important to go through in process. Something given as a solution in a clause is the first thing to look at before moving on to anything listed in a sub or sub-sub clause.

At the conference we then spent a chunk of our time talking about the different stage management clauses. Specifically we looked at overtime and how that is to be administered, the required rehearsal conditions, contracts and how to calculate the length of day.

Personally, I don’t often work in CTA houses (with the exception, thus far, of my work with pi theatre), but I find it very valuable to have a better understanding of the regulations that are in place in those situations. Many of the clauses were created to protect the artists (which include the stage manager!) and therefore it is well worth my time to implement as many of those as I can in other settings, regardless of the company’s relationship with equity. No, I’m not about to go around saying that I must be payed overtime & meal infringements when I’m working on a co-op, but keeping track of the length of day that I work and ensuring that I take some time to take care of myself is an important thing.

UPDATE: To view the CTA online in its full form, head over to http://caea.com/EquityWeb/EquityLibrary/Agreements/Theatre/TheatreLibrary.aspx

SMARTS: Vancouver 2010 Stage Management Conference

May 19th, 2010
by Lois.
2 comments

Last week the SMArts conference came to Vancouver.  Never heard of SMArts? If you’re a stage manager in Canada you should have.  Make sure you check out their website: http://stagemanagingthearts.ca/ They run a 10 day conference in Toronto every year that covers everything from Scheduling & Planning to Television (and how stage management skills transfer) to Job Interviews & Contract Negotiating to Financial Planning to a master class in Stage Managing for the Opera. In addition to the Toronto based conference, they hit the road each year and do a shortened conference in another major Canadian city.  In addition to the conferences they run, they are the people behind the book Stage Managing the Arts in Canada which is one of the best purchases I have made in recent years.

Luckily for me, this year they came to Vancouver and I had the opportunity to attend four of their sessions: CTA SM Clauses, Safety, Apprentice Stage Manager, & Calling a Show/The Prompt Script.  I had a fabulous time at the conference, learned a lot & made good connections. I am in the process of converting some of my notes into blog posts, so keep your eyes open for those.

I learned a lot of concrete things from the conference, but even more valuable than that were two seemingly small things.  The first was an opportunity to meet some of the other apprentice stage managers in Vancouver.  There were four of us who attended most of the sessions and then a couple of others who were at one or two.  We are all at different stages in our careers, but the ability to compare notes about what’s happening in theatre in Vancouver, in regards to hiring practise, availability or not of opportunities, and just general networking was invaluable.  The second thing that seems small but was incredibly valuable to me was a conversation that happened one night at the bar after the day’s sessions were complete.  There were only five of us present: two apprentices (myself included) and three Equity SM’s and we began to talk about the issue of mental health in stage management and the severe stress we put ourselves under on a regular basis.  While we did not come to any conclusions or solutions, the ability to sit along someone and realize “oh, it’s not just me? You experience that too.” was a great strength.  On the last day of the conference they passed around a paper so that we could sign up for a social list and I truly hope that there will be some good social opportunities that arise from that.  If nothing else came from the conference, that alone would have made it worthwhile.  And in my case, that wasn’t the only thing I got from the conference.  But there will be more on that subject in upcoming posts.