Chicago Acting blog by David August

Friday, September 24, 2004

As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!

Equity actors now get session and use fees for commercials:

The new four-year Production pact between Actors' Equity Association and the League of American Theatres and Producers, according to two union reps, contains new fiscal formulas favorable to actors that will make it easier for producers to promote shows, keeping them running longer.

As reported in last week's Back Stage, this aspect of the new agreement consists of paying a standard on-camera principal rate to all performers appearing in a commercial for a Broadway or touring show

Under the old formula, Greenwood detailed further, actors were paid a "session fee" - a fee for the session in which the commercial was made - and that fee could be applied to the "use fee" for the dates when the commercial was aired. Under the new formula, he says, actors will get a session fee and a separate use fee, "so there will be a lot of chorus actors making a lot more money than they used to under the old formula, and in this respect we've improved the formula for actors and producers. I think, at the end of four years, there will be more money in the pockets of actors because more commercials will have been done."