Re: [Re: RAT Reading Series --What Brecht thinks] To Dennis

[brad rothbart <scrdchao@nni.com>]

>Hmm, I thought theatre was all ABOUT money.   Your cohort, Brad, suggested
>that actors be paid an Equity wage, when he issued his challenge to me and
>others to make theatre.  I'd dearly love to do that, give my actors what they
>deserve, but we're in it for the work, and money is tight for playwrights who
>work part-time, like myself.  If we waited to do Equity-level shows, there'd
>be no RAT shows.
>
>I guess you and Brad are trust fund babies.
>
>By the way, an artistic director who cannot spell is already suspect!  Heed
>the zeitgeist!
>
>MF

 Ok, this is starting to feel like the OK Corral......

No trust fund babies here.... Just art workers who can't afford
spellcheckers: )

 Personally, as  an actor and director  myself, I have a personal issue
about not paying actors for a show.  It's my own gordian   knot, which I
can't untie.


However, I feeel that a one -rehearsal script in hand reading, as long as
the playwrights involved agree,  is alevel at which I can ask  p eople to
work for free  without feeling like an exploiter of human capital. This is
my own Mishegas.   It also doesn't mean that I wouldn't  jump at the chance
to BE  exploited human capital , if that was offeered to me- I just can't
recocile being the exploiter..

Ergo, a reading series.

 ,Also, I'm not Equity, and  know nothing about their scales. I was looking
at a living wage- $/750/wk, =$ 36,000/yr- seems about right as a living
wage for moost people. That's all....


---brad