Actor and stage manager union Actors' Equity Association has released their biennial Hiring Bias and Wage Gap in Theatre Report, which reflects data collected from 2022 and 2023. The report looks at employment opportunities and average salaries for actors and stage managers working in professional contracts nationwide.
The report found a 8.96% increase in the amount of contracts going to BIPOC Equity members compared to 2016-2019, with 30.26% of all contracts going to BIPOC artists. Conversely, women and non-binary members worked fewer contracts on average compared to the same period. The report also found a drastic increase in work weeks approaching pre-pandemic levels, and a 1.18% increase in contracts for members over the age of 45.
This latest report is the fifth such release from the union, which has tracked the data since 2013. This release is the first to cover two years of data, which the union is planning to continue. Groups looked at include race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, and veteran status, along with the intersection of some of those groups.
"Change doesn鈥檛 happen organically,鈥� says AEA President Brooke Shields in a statement. 鈥淭he whole reason Equity began sharing this data was to bring awareness of existing disparities to the people who make decisions about what shows to stage, who to hire for them and how much to pay those workers.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 now more important than ever that we take care to ensure our own workplaces can live up to the actual ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion,鈥� adds Executive Director Al Vincent Jr. 鈥淚 hope this report can support all of us in the theatre industry in doing just that.鈥�
The report is authored by Danee Conley, the group's director of diversity and inclusion, with data compiled by Russell Lehrer.
Find the full report at . The union has also made a higher accessibility edition of the report available .
