The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book or through-storyline may be represented by the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). The AEA works to negotiate quality living conditions, livable wages, and benefits for performers and stage managers. A theater or production that is not produced and performed by AEA members may be called "non-Equity".
The Fulton Opera House, also known as the Fulton Theatre or simply The Fulton, is a League of Regional Theatres class B regional theater located in historic downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is reportedly the oldest working theatre in the United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term regional theater most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. A regional theater may or may not be for profit or unionized. The term "playhouse" is often used to specifically denote this type of theater.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States.
The Broadway League, formerly the League of American Theatres and Producers and League of New York Theatres and Producers, is the national trade association for the Broadway theatre industry based in New York City. Its members include theatre owners and operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in New York and more than 250 other North American cities, as well as suppliers of goods and services to the theatre industry.
Marin Theatre is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and professional LORT D regional theater located in Mill Valley, California. Lance Gardner is the company's Artistic Director
Portland Stage Company is a professional LORT theater company in the state of Maine. Founded as the Profile Theatre in 1974 as a touring theater company, the company made Portland its permanent location in 1976. In 1982, it moved to its current home of 25A Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine. Anita Stewart has served as the Artistic Director since 1996, and in 2006 was made Executive Director.
Peninsula Players is a summer theater located in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Founded in 1935 by Richard and Caroline Fisher, it is known as "America's Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre."
The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), formerly known as Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC), is an independent national labor union established in 1959, representing theatrical directors and choreographers working on Broadway, National Tours, Off-Broadway, and in various resident, regional, and stock theatres throughout the United States.
The 2003 Broadway musicians strike was a strike by the Associated Musicians of Greater New York, American Federation of Musicians Local 802 union members, and other Broadway unions such as Actors' Equity Association and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The strike lasted from Friday, March 7, 2003, to early Tuesday morning, March 11, 2003.
New Age Vaudeville was an American professional theater troupe founded by Richard O'Donnell and Amy McKenzie, and was part of the Chicago comedy boom of the 1980s.
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. It is the oldest form of drama, though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres", as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.
Rex Partington was an actor, director and producer. Partington worked in the professional theater in the United States for over fifty years as an actor, production stage manager, director, producer, artistic director and producing director and was active on Broadway as well as professional regional theater. He was instrumental in the establishment of the League of Resident Theatres and played a vital role in the development of regional theater.
The Pioneer Theatre Company (PTC) is one of four professional theatre companies in Utah, and the only fully professional theatre in Salt Lake City, contracting with union members belonging to Actors' Equity Association (AEA), Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) and United Scenic Artists (USA829). PTC was formed in 1962 and performs at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City. The non-profit company produces seven plays each season, running from September to May, including classics, musicals, dramas, and comedies. The company creates its own productions on site, including costumes and scenery, while sometimes using actors and directors from out-of-state. Among a number of premieres, the company produced the nation's first regional premiere of Les Misérables in 2007, giving 82 sold out performances.
Capital Repertory Theatre is a 309-seat professional regional theatre in Albany, New York. Capital Rep is the only theatre in the Capital District that is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT). As a member, it operates under collective bargaining agreements with Actors' Equity Association and other theatre worker unions.
The Actor's Workshop was a theatre company founded in San Francisco in 1952. It was the first professional theatre on the west coast to premiere many of the modern American classics such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, and the world dramas of Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter. For the 1953–1954 season, the Workshop offered six plays: Lysistrata, by Aristophanes; Venus Observed, by Christopher Fry; Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller; a revival of Playboy; The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov; and Tonight at 8.30, by Noël Coward. On April 15, 1955, the Actor's Workshop signed the first Off-Broadway Equity contract to be awarded outside New York City.
Keith Franklin Fowler was an American actor, director, producer, and educator. He was a professor of drama and former head of directing in the Drama Department of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the artistic director of two LORT/Equity theaters.
Jules Irving was an American actor, director, educator, and producer, who in the 1950s co-founded the San Francisco Actor's Workshop. When the Actor's Workshop closed in 1966, Irving moved to New York City and became the first Producing Director of the Repertory Company of the Vivian Beaumont Theater of Lincoln Center.
The 1919 Actors' Equity Association strike officially spanned from August 7, 1919, to September 6, 1919. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the theatre industry was revolutionized by powerful management groups that monopolized and centralized the industry. These groups created harsh working conditions for the actors. On May 26, 1913, actors decided to unionize, and they formed the Actors' Equity Association. After many failed attempts to negotiate with the producers and managers for fair treatment and a standard contract, Equity declared a strike against the Producing Managers' Association on August 7, 1919. During the strike, the actors walked out of theaters, held parades in the streets, and performed benefit shows. Equity received support from the theatrical community, the public, and the American Federation of Labor, and on September 6, 1919, the actors won the strike. The producers signed a contract with the AEA that contained nearly all of Equity's demands. The strike was important because it expanded the definition of labor and altered perceptions about what types of careers could organize. The strike also encouraged other groups within the theatre industry to organize.
