On Tuesday, the NY Times published an article on UCB 's long-held practice of not paying performers that has become the industry norm here in New York (Laughs Can Be Cheap at a Comedy Theater by Jason Zinoman). It's a very interesting read and I recommend you check it out here.
As an actor and an improviser, I read the Times article with much interest and growing unease. However, what shocked me more was not UCB's philosophy, but the hue and outcry in the readers' comments (and also on social media sites) from fellow performers screaming bloody murder that their beloved UCB (and all improv theaters by association) should not, MUST NOT, pay their performers! Ever! How DARE Jason Zinoman question the ethics, not to mention the legality of such a practice! Art will fail! Improv will die! People will stop attending the theater! We owe so very much to the UCB! DON'T PAY US! WE'RE JUST NOT WORTH IT!
Really, much of the vitriol (and fear) is surprising to me.
Of course UCB does not pay its performers. It does not have to. UCB has a very successful business model (followed by pretty much all businesses in all industries). That is - make the most money for the least possible expenditure. As long as you can get talented performers willing to donate their time and talents for free, why in the world would any business turn that down?
Now I'm not saying ALL improvisers should be paid at all times. I have heard very cogent arguments from people, including Nate Dern, Chris Gethard, and Will Hines, among others, that UCB functions as a sort of comedy "grad school", allowing performers much needed stage time to hone their craft and develop material. True. Very true. I, for one, have been very grateful to many theaters who have donated their venues (Gotham City Improv, the PIT to name a few) for an hour or two to present a new and untried show, who have allowed me stage time to become a stronger performer. Anthony King also writes a very interesting defense in his blog - that it is worth it for him to perform for free at UCB, because the theater takes on all the production costs and financial risks in exchange for providing a popular showcase vehicle.
If an improviser is a student of the theater or a show does not have a following, a consistent audience, then, no, the performer perhaps should not be paid. If the theater is a struggling not-for-profit, yes, concessions should be made. An argument could be made that, in these cases, the performers are being paid with experience and visibility.
You could make a similar argument for those improvisers who get up onstage as a hobby, who rehearse infrequently, don't promote their shows - the performers who view their time onstage as their own special "bowling night." These are not actors, they are not professionals, they are amateurs. That is fine. There's plenty of room for them, as well.
However, if a show is so popular that you have lines circling around the block, from week to week to week, year after year, generating consistent and large ticket sales for a company that has organized itself as a legal for-profit entity, then, yes, the improvisers should be paid. While the Theater is the producer, the Improvisers are the actual product and creators and deserve a cut. If someone is making money off of your work, you should be compensated.
Many commenters scream, "If we pay an improviser (even a small token sum), we'd have to raise ticket prices. No one would come to the show! The theater would close!" Really? The average improv show costs about $6-8. If tickets were raised to, say, $10 or $15 or even $20, and the difference passed on to the performer, NO ONE could afford to come? Do people really believe that?
Why in the world, would any performer question this, let alone fight against their own best interests? This, really, is not UCB's fault (they are protecting their own best interests), but the fault of performers (real performers, not the inexperienced students and extracurricular dabblers) for debasing their own work and the work of their colleagues. As long as individuals don't value what they do (and, yes, improv is an art and art has value), nothing changes.
In the NY Times article, Matt Besser is quoted,
“I don’t see what they (improvisers at his theater) do as labor. I see guys onstage having fun. It’s not a job.”
This statement is a bit disingenuous and somewhat insulting. I'm sure that Matt Besser is paid fairly for any tv or film appearances he makes - at least I hope his agent makes sure that he is. I'm fairly certain he is having fun. The production company is making a profit from his work (and yes, art and acting is work, even when it's fun), so of course he is paid.
To suggest that if one enjoys one's work, it no longer merits compensation, is ridiculous. To perpetuate the myth of the starving artist is both self serving (on the part of certain producers) and naive. To perpetuate it as a performer is troubling.
I'm sure theater producers in the 19th and early 20th centuries argued many of the same points. "Acting is fun, people want to do it, really you should be paying us, if you don't like the conditions, then leave." Exploitation was rampant in the theater industry - It was the producers who set working conditions and pay scale, rarely compensating for rehearsal time that was often unlimited. Frequently when touring shows closed, actors were stranded penniless far from home.
Thanks to the emergence of the labor movement and the foundation of unions like The National Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in 1910, The Dramatists' Guild in 1912, Actors' Equity Association in 1919 and the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, performers finally had a voice, but only because they spoke up.
Now, I hesitate to suggest that improvisational theater be unionized. This would be a complicated, lengthy and difficult process. However, there are issues of Fair Labor practices that are, in many cases, being ignored. Maybe unionization is the future?
More importantly, there is the issue of what is fair and right and the willingness of performers to value and respect their own work and art in general. After all, as Ross Perlin, author of “Intern Nation,” is quoted in the article,
“Once a big part of an industry becomes unpaid, that quickly becomes the norm."
Is improv not an art, and is that art worthless? Is that the norm that we as improvisers want to set and perpetuate? Don't we have any respect for ourselves and our work?
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