“Playbill” has today posted an article on “the typical salary for performers—and stage managers and musicians—who work on Broadway.”
See— http://www.playbill.com/article/how-much-money-do-broadway-actors-make
It was a very interesting and encouraging article. I would be thrilled if my D was ensemble her entire career! I know she could live on the salary 
Yes an encouraging figure. Keeping in mind that that figure is an actor in an on Broadway show. wondering if an equity Broadway tour member gets the same salary? Some tours also are not Equity so they don’t get that amount etc.
Yes, it would be a decent salary if you were earning that every week of every year. However, that doesn’t happen. When there are tens of thousands of actors in NYC alone, only a very small percentage of them have anything close to 52 weeks of work in any given year. Check the work weeks per member on the AEA site.
@alwaysamom, average workweeks and salary per region was the topic of the AEA winter newsletter. Not the most encouraging, for sure.
Yes, indeed, @GSOMTMom . Regionally, the highest work weeks per member was Central Florida at 17.
salaries look pretty good, but how often do performers go from an ensemble in one show to immediately being in another ensemble? (or maybe a week or two in between?)I know stars are typically in a leading role for one year at the most. However, can ensemble roles run longer than a year? Is the $2,034 total for a week before benefits and equity dues or after? Does that include sick days and/or vacation time?
I remember reading an article sometime ago on some Broadway ensemble members in Wicked. I believe one of them had been in the ensemble for many years? Of course this is the exception I’m sure not the norm.
Of course most theatre gigs aren’t Broadway.
The odds of landing a place on the Broadway stage and supporting yourself through stage earnings are incredibly small, probably on the order of 50 or 100 to 1 for college BFA grads. Even though this thread is six years old, I think the stats are pretty much the same at present:
One thing that has changed - it is now considerably easier to make it into Equity. This is not going to help Equity employment statistics, in fact, more Equity members chasing the basically same amount of work is only going to make the stats worse. Equity is hoping this will eventually result in more Equity jobs (for example, encouraging what are now non-Equity tours to become Equity tours) but I have no doubt this will greatly lag the growth in Equity members.
“One and done” is not at all uncommon as well, i.e., you land a role on the Great White Way and it turns out that is the only one that you ever get.
Another problem facing Broadway aspirants - you finally make it, only to have your show close quickly. Consider the sad tale of Russ Thacker (my sister did shows with him in high school) who landed 6 leads on Broadway, which ran for a grand total of 15 shows:
The Grass Harp - 5 shows
Heathen! - 1 show
Dear Oscar - 4 shows
Home Sweet Homer - 1 show (with Yul Brenner!)
Me Jack, You Jill - never opened
Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? - 4 shows
Shows don’t quite fail as quickly and easily as they did when this happened in the 1970’s, but you never know…
There are many different levels of AEA tours, with different contracts. The highest level is a production contract, which is basically the same as a Broadway contract with an added per diem for living expenses. Then there are short engagement touring agreements (SETA), which pay far less than production contracts. As an example, my daughter was in a national tour on a production contract. When that tour closed, the producers opened a second, smaller scale tour of the same show so it could play smaller theaters. The kids on that contract made half of what my daughter made. Per diems are less under a SETA contract as well. So how much you make depends on what contract you’re hired under.
Do they make that salary during the weeks the show is in rehearsal too?
Yes.
So about how many of the relatively high-paying jobs described in the article referenced above are available?
Well, here are some stats from the latest Equity report (2015-16) that provide some answers to that question.
Of course, not all Equity work is full time, so many of these jobs were split among more actors and stage managers than the count shows, but this does represent the total amount of available Equity work.
There is, of course, lots of non-equity work, but the pay is much less (generally much, much less) than Equity pay. The New York Times reported non-Equity tour pay rates as low as $500 per week in an article from 2014.
If you want to read the full report, you can find it here:
Pretty sure none of our kids got into this for the bucks.
Right @artskids. I always say that anyone one in theater is doing it for the love of
I agree. They still have to be able to earn enough to sustain a reasonable living and the AEA numbers that EmsDad kindly provided is information that prospective students and parents should understand.
I also recommend all aspiring performers and their parents to read Audition Update (wwe.auditionupdate.com), a forum for New York actors. In particular, read the section called “Bitching Post,” where they share problems and complaints and ask for advice. It’s VERY eye-opening and really shows what it’s like trying to be a professional actor or MT performer.
I understand the statistics, but it was an encouraging read. I think most parents on this board do not have the illusion that their kid is going to be the next KChen! The point is that the money is not bad. We have friends that signed a year contract to tour with AAIP. They both lived in NYC for many years, both in many shows, but also spent time supplementing during done times or times of no work. Teach Pilates or coaching (this is how my D found them) - teaching MC etc. You have to always hustle. The sold everything and are spending the year saving and traveling. All their expenses/housing etc are covered on the tour and they get paid. They figured it was a great opportunity to travel the country, save money and do what they love.
@LBSMOM I agree! I think it’s encouraging to know that if our kids are lucky enough to get a gig on Broadway they will be at least be making decent money for the time they are doing it (whereas I think many people are under the assumption that ensemble members make as little as minimum wage)!