When business is bad, television is blamed or high ticket prices. Actually, television has had a very considerable impact on theatre and films. Why should people pay to see something that doesn't interest them when they can watch something they like for nothing? Today, too, many households have VCRs and cable TV and people are able to see popular movies at very low cost. What happens, of course, is that when good films are made, the entire film industry benefits; when good plays are produced on Broadway, theatre everywhere is helped.
Not so many years ago, any play that ran 100 performances was a success on every level--now a show may run a year and still close without paying back its full investment. These things would lead us to believe that the situation is critical. But, as we learn in elementary physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Job Opportunities
A number of years ago, it was widely reported that only about 10 percent of all professional actors worked at any given time and that the average income of an actor was $800 a year. The survey that produced these statistics, while widely quoted even today, oversimplifies the facts. Certainly, the employment picture is bleak enough without blackening it further.
Actors' employment is a confused and complicated subject not easily translated into a single dramatic statistic. It is complicated for several reasons: each union maintains separate jurisdiction and keeps separate employment statistics on a week-to-week basis, unrelated to other unions' records. Also, some members remain on the unions' rosters even after they actually become inactive or leave the business, and those people are numbered among the unemployed. The unions can't tell you exactly how many people worked last year; they can tell only how many contracts were signed (some actors signed several, one for each job), or how many people worked in a particular medium in any given week. Actors' Equity's jurisdiction is the stage; any of its members who happen to be making a film with the backing of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) are considered by Equity to be unemployed.
Published reports that offer statistics to support broad and absolute generalizations are obviously not accurate. While the greatest problem facing the acting profession is unemployment, the promulgation of such dire figures as gospel tends to downgrade the total income picture of the average actor.
Still, prospects are not bright. This is true in every field--film, television, or stage--and while it is not news that joblessness is chronic, there actually are more jobs available now than there were many years ago. Films, television (both network and cable), theatre (including regional theatre), industrial shows, and commercials have opened up new avenues. But the percentage of employed members does not rise proportionately because the membership rolls are larger than they used to be, and competition among the many actors for the relatively few jobs is just as intense as it was when there were fewer actors. There are more than 100,000 membership cards now outstanding in the performer unions comprising the Associated Actors and Artistes of America (commonly called the Four A's). Actors often belong to more than one union, and, while the total number of individuals who hold membership cards in all the acting unions is not known, we do know how many members each union has.
The population of the United States grows larger every year and this expansion reflects itself everywhere. Performers wander into the theatre in increasing numbers, with or without any talent, so the unions grow willy-nilly. But the sale of additional television sets, for example, will not necessarily mean an increase in the number of actors televised.
U.S. Labor Department studies reveal that the jobs of performing artists tend to be more intermittent than those of other working people; their periods without work are more numerous and longer lasting, and their pay is well below that of other professionals and many other American workers. The data indicates that a successful career in the performing arts requires considerable versatility to move from one artistic discipline to another and, often, from a job as a performer to a job outside the profession which helps the artist "survive" while waiting for another opportunity as a performer.
It must be stressed that figures gleaned from actors' unions cannot possibly reflect the total earnings of the average actor, because although actors may be employed at other work, they are considered unemployed by Actors' Equity unless they are at work in a stage play. Everyone who is employed in films or television is nevertheless considered out of work by Equity, and everyone who is employed on stage or in live television or radio is similarly considered unemployed according to the records of the Screen Actors Guild. Equity's books list Robert Redford as an unemployed member as long as he is not at work on a stage play!
Also, this income does not reflect money earned from work outside of the performing arts: waiting tables, driving cabs, etc.
The last comprehensive survey of employment in the performing arts was conducted for the National Endowment for the Arts. The study confirmed what everyone in the business knows.
A considerable amount of artistic training and talent is underutilized. An important job consideration for many performers who take temporary work outside the arts is flexibility in hours, so they can continue their careers by attending auditions, and making the rounds.
However, despite the bleak employment picture--the surplus of job applicants, the lack of job security, and the uncertainty of financial reward--performers remain strongly committed to their profession.
Adjustment
No matter where the actor works, he or she must adapt: "adjustment" it is called in the acting profession. Essentially common to all acting, no matter where it is done, is what Elia Kazan has called "a sense of truth," making the character believable and acceptable to an audience. There are certain differences in technique or execution, however, peculiar to each medium in which the actor works. These differences demand of the actor facility and adjustment.
The actor on the stage must commit to memory an entire script, often upwards of 100 pages, must sustain a performance for two or three hours night after night, and must be heard in the back row of the balcony. If the performance is poor, the actors cannot send the audience out of the theatre and begin again. Granted, they usually have six or seven weeks of rehearsal to achieve these things, but in the final analysis, once on the stage, the actors must rely on their own abilities.
The same actor working on a film does not labor under all of these disadvantages. There is a microphone to amplify the voice. If the actor makes a mistake, the scene can be done again; sometimes, various parts of different "takes" can even be pieced together in the cutting room to show the actor's best work. The actor does not have to learn the whole script at once or deliver it during a single performance.
But, in exchange for these seeming props and crutches, the film in turn makes its own unique demands upon the actor, so the situation works conversely, too. It is not easy to report for work at 5 A.M. and begin in the middle of an emotional scene, and it is often hard to pinpoint the continuity of the story in relation to the actor's character, especially when the last or middle part of the picture is filmed first, as often happens. Many experienced Broadway stars doing their first film have been terrified into near-paralysis by the microphone and camera. The stage actor, in front of a camera for the first time, may be somewhat thrown by the necessity of having to "hit marks" (without seeming to notice them) when moving from one place to another within a set. These "marks" are, quite literally, marks on the floor, made with tape or chalk, which are used as distance guides in focusing the camera. The film actor, in addition, should have some understanding of the camera and what its lenses do. A person's face on a motion picture screen may be magnified some 30 times, so that the actor must be able to leave a large theatre after projecting her or his voice and meaning to the balcony, and enter the film studio prepared to convey these same emotions by techniques far more subdued. The flicker of an eyelash on the stage will not be noticed; the gargantuan vitality required on stage becomes grotesque on film. Generally, however, it is recognized that it is easier to cut down than build up. A person who can lift 500 pounds will have no trouble with 250; if 75 pounds is the maximum to which one is accustomed, 100 pounds will surely cause a strain.
Lord Laurence Olivier, who acted both on stage and in films, had this advice in his book, On Acting: "If you're having trouble with your relationship with the camera, look to your makeup, gestures and expressions; look to your eyes; look within yourself. And get your feeling and mood right. If all else fails, talk to the director."
While most dramatic television shows today are being made on tape or film, the early days of TV saw mainly live performances. These made incredible demands on the actor, for they required combined knowledge of both stage and film techniques, and the most rigorous discipline required by either of them. For while the actor must understand and adjust a performance to the placement of lights, microphones, cameras, cables, and a virtual circus of behind-the-camera distractions, he or she must also commit to memory the entire script in a very short period of rehearsal, and work with the certain knowledge that if the performance isn't good the first time, there is no second take. In addition, live television required that an actor be concerned with such matters as changing costume quickly (perhaps during a commercial), racing across the stage to a different set, and then being prepared to begin a convincing love scene. In view of all this, it is really something of a wonder that any good performances were seen at all on live dramatic television.
The aptitudes necessary for radio acting are very special, and the opportunity for young actors in the field is slim. On radio, it is not necessary to learn the lines, for they are always read. Appearance, of course, matters not at all; middle-aged ladies frequently impersonate babies and leading men often double as animals. A pleasing and exceptionally flexible voice is essential, for an actor may play more than one character on the same program, and the listening audience must not be aware of this. In some cases, actors are versatile enough to play both parts in scenes where two characters are talking to each other. The ability to do dialects is absolutely necessary, as is an instinct for sight-reading (making sense out of a script without ever having seen it before). It is not unknown for a radio actor to have to go on the air without seeing the script until the broadcast.
