Ask Playbill.com: Chorus Salary

alwaysamom
Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:49:37 +0000

Very few actors in NYC live in Manhattan, and also most actors have roommates. Very few have their own place. Cost of living in the city is high, for everything. While $6000 a month sounds pretty good, and would be if this were a job that once you were hired, you had steady work, the reality is that most actors do not have steady work, and a very small percentage ever get a Broadway show. As the article says, even if every Broadway theatre was filled with a cast of 20 (never happens), that would employ approximately 800 actors. This is 800 out of approximately 17,000 Equity members in the city, and countless thousands more of non-union actors.

It truly is so discouraging for so many of these kids who flock to the city initially with no concept of the odds against them. I know too many of them! And it’s not only the thousands of unemployed actors IN the city that they’re competing with for jobs. Actors outside the city routinely audition and are considered for Broadway, off-Broadway and touring shows. I know of two just in the past couple of weeks who have been cast, a Canadian in Spring Awakening and a South African in Rent. If I think about this too much, it gives me a headache. :)