Britain clamps down on fringe and profit share theatre.

Rebecca (and the Michael Jackson Walter), it's a two-way street. As much as the producers need to make it clear to the cast/crew what happens with the profits, it's important for the actors/crew to ASK and confirm said understanding. As a self-producer I make it a point of being clear to whoever I'm working with about what will happen with the profits; but NEVER have I been directly asked by the cast/crew to give specifics, outside of 'is it profit-share?'. Even though it's my responsibility to provide those specifics, it's up to the actors/crew to ensure they are comfortable enough with the information provided to make an informed consent to work on the show. If you're not being given enough info, or info to your satisfaction, then don't work on that show. This goes for any project where you are being asked to work on, and I've had situations where as the person being hired, I asked (and asked and asked) for reasonable information (ie. a written contract) and in the end turned down the job because I was unsatisfied with the lack of response. As Logos points out, being a producer is difficult, and quite often producers simply can't answer for the money beforehand. If we knew outright what kind of profit would be seen, then we'd be psychic. Additionally, many expenses can't be accounted for until after the show has finished, when venue hire costs are deducted, and so forth. You say that working profit-share as an actor costs money: but you as the actor are also not forking out the initial production costs. The producers are also losing money by doing the show in the first place. "People have families, bills, mortgages, just because we're actors as opposed to anything else shouldn't put us in this sort of position." Well, so do the producers. They also have these bills to pay, and yet they fork out the dough to produce shows anyway. They also shouldn't have to be in the position to pay their actors award rates at the expense of being able to pay their bills. That's not running a business, that's running a bankruptcy. (It's also good to remember that the people who put the money into the show are also the ones legally liable for any losses or inability to pay bills. The actors do not take on this liability, unless also putting in money to fund the show) Ultimately, I no longer work profit-share except with people I know and trust already - not because of the issues of not getting paid, but because of the over-reliance on ambiguous verbal agreements. People need to be clear in their discussions on both sides of the aisle. If the term profit-share is too vague for you, then make damn sure no one is vague the next time you work with them. I will add that in our country, if award rates were forced on small companies, about 90% of professional theatre would simply not exist. This runs through to other fields: playwrights would lose work and royalties and have a harder time getting into the writing industry (which is quite tough in Australia already); techies would lose work... in a country where most of our successful people are overseas because of lack of work here, we would really die culturally. For one, many small pro companies are made up of less than 5 people: award rates would simply kill their ability to produce anything original, let alone of high quality. Perhaps European countries can get away with it: government and private funding is ten times better. Even Asian countries could afford to do it - private funding is almost mandatory, when it's seen as a cultural responsibility. But here, when there's very little funding for anything other than national or internationally renown companies, our industry would simply sink under the weight of better rates. Puppets and patterns at Puppets in Melbourne