Speakers and organizers of the Catch Up California rally.
LOS ANGELES: Actors’ Equity Association and the Theatre Producers of Southern California (TPSCA) have introduced a marketing campaign to fund SB 1116, a state arts invoice that handed the California legislature and was signed into regulation final yr.
The coalition hopes to boost $50 million to launch the Equitable Payroll Fund, a grant program designed to assist stay performances by offering reimbursement of payroll bills. The program will assist jobs for each manufacturing and non-production staff. The coalition held a fundraising kickoff occasion, Catch Up California, final week on the Antaeus Theatre Company.
“This is an urgent moment for California to catch up on arts funding and support live arts workers, who have still not fully recovered from the COVID shutdown,” Equity president Kate Shindle mentioned in a press release. “Funding the Equitable Payroll Fund now will save theatres across the state and will ensure a better future for thousands of middle-class arts workers in California, as well as all the small businesses that depend on a thriving theatre in their neighborhoods.”
Prior to the pandemic, California ranked simply twenty eighth in arts funding nationwide on a per capita foundation. According to TPSCA, the variety of theatres in North Hollywood shrunk from 14 earlier than the pandemic to 6. Bay Area theatres are shuttering as nicely.
“The future of California’s vibrant and eclectic small performing arts organizations has never been in greater peril, with new reports of closures every week,” TPSCA president Martha Demson mentioned in a press release. “We implore the California legislature to recognize our rich cultural and artistic legacy and to act now to fund the Equitable Payroll Fund.”
Actor’s Equity Association is a U.S. labor union that represents over 51,000 skilled actors and stage managers. Equity endeavors to advance the careers of its members by negotiating wages, bettering working circumstances, and offering a variety of advantages.
Theatre Producers of Southern California is a commerce affiliation comprised of nonprofit theatrical producers. TPSCA represents producers in union negotiations to facilitate the betterment of theatre and strengthen the model identification of Southern California theatre for audiences.
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