for those stage managers and actors who haven’t yet returned to their pre-pandemic level of

employment, seeing others’ success may be cold comfort. And that goes double for those who

had not yet reached the level of employment they hoped for prior to the shutdown. Employers

who are laying o sta and tightening budgets are unlikely to feel relieved seeing their

colleagues at other theaters operating in full force.

But as you’ll read in the pages to come, by many of our benchmarks, the union’s numbers are

approaching – or in some cases, exceeding – some of our best seasons on record. It’s my hope

that this report will calm some of our worries, even if it doesn’t quite answer all of our questions.

We can feel encouraged by the positive trajectory this report describes, but let’s not celebrate

quite yet. ere is still work to be done to shape our industry into one that provides opportunity

is report tells your stories. Every data point in this report is connected to an individual

negotiate and the work you performed backstage and on stage, as well as the contract terms only

achievable through your combined strength.

is report is a collective view of those individual experiences, one which shows remarkable

resilience. By every metric discussed here, the 2022–23 season was the healthiest for our

membership since the shutdown. Refreshingly, in many instances they approached or even

exceeded the pre-shutdown records for the union. But in areas where recovery lags, members

continue to struggle, and Equity continues to ght for your employment opportunities and

earnings.

Russell Lehrer

e last full season before the COVID-19 industry shutdown – the 2018–2019 season – saw

two critical measures, the 2022-2023 season reects a robust economic recovery – earning

50% higher than 2021–2022 and 1.2% higher than the record earnings of 2018–2019 – with

employment lagging close behind – 41% more employment than 2021–2022, though still 16%

behind the record employment of 2018–2019.

ere are many ways to quantify any union’s overall membership, and one of the most common

ways is active membership. Active membership includes members regardless of dues balance,

while not including members who have temporarily withdrawn from or formally suspended

payment of dues to the union. Looking at active membership by region for this season, the

geographic distribution of members in each region represents remained virtually unchanged

employment, not the residence of the member employed.

ese rst two charts illustrate total work weeks, showing the combined regional work weeks

for the past 10 years and then each region’s work weeks broken out separately. is year we

continue the strong rebound from the loss of employment in the 2020–2021 season when

the industry shut down. e 2020–2021 season saw work week losses across all three regions

ranging between 91% and 93%. In this second season of recovery, regional work weeks increased

between 25% and 46% over the 2021–2022 levels.

Looking rst to the Western Region, members worked a cumulative amount of 50,629 work

weeks, or 18.3% of all work weeks nationally. ese work weeks are an increase of 37.3% over

the 36,881 work weeks the previous season, while 14.2% below the record 2018–19 season.

In the Central Region, members worked a total of 37,422 work weeks, or 13.5% of all work

weeks this season. is is an increase of 25.1% over the 29,910 work weeks in 2021–22, and

73.3% of the work weeks earned in 2018–19.

Lastly, employment in the Eastern Region generated 188,706 work weeks, or 68.2% of all work

weeks. is is an increase of 45.6% above the 129,597 work weeks earned in the previous season,

though still 13.8% lower than the 2018–19 season.

Equity continues its eorts to ensure work week and employment opportunities increase for

to Equity’s governance structure. Instead of the 10-year lookback we have employed elsewhere

in this report, we now focus only on the 6-year period referenced in Article 3, Section 2(c)

of Equity’s Constitution which denes how our National Council is composed, using these

statistics every 6 years.

Agreements covering national tours have their contractual origins in the Production Contract.

on both the Production Contract and the Short Engagement Touring Agreement (SETA). is

consolidation to a unied Touring Agreement does, however, provide a momentary statistical

challenge in providing seasonal gures and context for this annual report. For long-term analytic

reasons and contractual administration, the productions that were touring on the Monday

following the new agreement’s ratication (May 1, 2023) and continued touring on the new

Touring Agreement have been retroactively classied to the Touring Agreement to their rst

employment date in previous seasons, while those that had closed prior to ratication have

retained their historic classication.

To better contextualize the Production Contract statistics examined in the next section, with

touring removed for the rst time in Equity’s history, our analysis will start with Touring,

agreement.

Touring employment across three agreements earned members $99,816,480 in 2022–23, 98.6%

of the record $101,213,443 earned in 2018–19.

Looking at the component agreements, again please note that in the chart below historic

earnings are attributed to the agreement that was in place either at the tour’s conclusion or in

place as the tour continues after the new agreement was ratied. In subsequent annual reports,

all national touring employment will be categorized under the new contract, the Touring

Agreement.

Contract employment. at’s a 38.9% increase over the previous season post-shut down, and a

return to 86.3% of the high mark set by the 2018–19 season. Earnings on these contracts again

tell a dierent story of recovery.

With this sizeable portion of touring employment that previously was on the Production

Contract reassigned to touring statistics, it is not surprising the following chart gives a

misperception of lost work on the Production Contract. is includes sit-down productions

outside of New York City as well as Broadway.

As a result of collectively bargained contractual increases and terms individually negotiated by

looks at our membership at a specic point in time.

Even though we look at membership at a given moment in time above, Equity’s membership

is not static. Between 1991 and 2019, Equity added an average of 2,302 new members each

theatrical season. In 2022–23, Equity added 2,303 new members, continuing to build on the

Open Access membership policy and newly organized work opportunities.

Year In Review section of this report.

Equity has three categories of member-generated revenue: initiation fees, basic dues and

for the majority of the funds which enable Equity to represent members and enforce its

collectively bargained agreements. e initiation fee is the initial payment made when a member

joins the union. is fee doesn’t have to be paid in one lump sum upfront and generally is paid

in installments when a member is working. Basic dues are collected from all members biannually

in the spring and fall. Collected when a member is working on an Equity contract, working dues

are calculated as a percentage of a member’s Equity-contracted income.

In addition to these three member-generated revenue streams, Equity has investments (both

nancial assets and real estate holdings) which account for 16.0% of Equity’s 2022–23 revenue.

fringes);

with which they provide these services (oce expenses and information

technology);

expenses, contract negotiations and ratications;

meet directly with members and enforce contractual terms.