by Gabriela Geselowitz
by Gabriela Geselowitz
As a union, Equity's first mission is to negotiate and enforce workplace agreements – and that's no small task. There are dozens of Equity agreements nationwide. This is for good reason: Broadway, Walt Disney World, regional theatres and all the other Equity workplaces are very different environments, and they need different rulebooks to match. Over the last few years, Equity leadership looked at the large number of agreements that shared significant similarities and realized there was an opportunity to make life easier for Equity members and employers alike. This opportunity led to the creation of the Independent Theatre Contract (ITC), consolidating nearly a dozen small promulgated agreements.
The ITC is designed to solve several problems at once: Making it easier for new theatres to come onboard with Equity, empowering members to better understand their contract and optimizing staff time.
Since its introduction in November 2024, many theatres have completed a full season of the ITC, and Equity expects its use to grow rapidly over the next few years. So, what is it, how did it get here and most importantly, what does it mean for stage managers and actors?
What Are Promulgated Agreements?
Equity's biggest agreements, like the Production Contract and the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) Agreement, are what are known as multiemployer collective bargaining agreements, or CBAs. Bargaining teams made up of representatives from Equity and representatives from the employer groups (trade associations that enable producers to bargain as a unit) meet to negotiate the terms of an agreement, everything from salary to safety provisions to limits on workdays.
From left: Equity member Birgitta De Pree, Erika Mori, Equity member Annie Barbour, Rakeem Lawrence, Lynne Hastings, David Corder in The Importance of Being Earnest at Theatreworks Colorado Springs. Photo by Isaiah J. Downing.
From left: Equity member Tanea Renee, Equity member Jannie Jones, Gabbi Mack, Equity member Crystal Sha'nae and Equity member Francesca Ferrari in A Night With Janis Joplin at Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania. Photo by Andy Smetzler.
A promulgated agreement is a specific kind of CBA, but unlike the multiemployer CBAs, it's negotiated between a union staff member and a single employer. A business rep reviews data about the theatre's history and finances to determine the minimums and starting points for negotiation. Once negotiations have been completed, if the resulting contract falls beyond certain guidelines (or is a Letter of Agreement (LOA), a unique contract that references a larger standard agreement), the business rep consults with the appropriate committee chair to determine whether the contract (including any modifications requested by the employer) is acceptable to the membership. The chair may approve the contract or bring it before the full contract committee for approval.
The correct type of agreement for each employer depends on their unique situation. For smaller theatres with fewer resources, for example, a promulgated agreement can make for a quicker, less-involved process with a gentler learning curve on how to employ unionized workers. Or a team at a theatre can enjoy the autonomy of not needing to come to a consensus with other theatres when bargaining. Ultimately, while it's a collaborative effort between the union and the employer to find the best fit, the union determines the appropriate agreement for the employer.
Promulgated agreements make up a significant part of the theatre industry; last year, 20.3% of Equity work weeks were generated through the umbrella of independent theatres, the largest portion of which used the Small Professional Theatre (SPT) Agreement. That's a lot of conversations with a lot of employers – a crucial part of a business rep's job, of course, but sometimes complicated or drawn out. For example, sometimes producers find themselves producing shows on different agreements in just one season to accommodate a variety of productions, like a cabaret performance or a show in a different venue or a play for children. Juggling different contracts – particularly when the same actors and stage managers are working on these productions – can become cumbersome, especially when the work rules are similar but not identical.
"That system was mystifying in a lot of ways for both members and producers," said Equity stage manager Erin Maureen Koster. During her term as 3rd vice president, she helped lead the charge to streamline the process.
Asking the Question
Equity leadership wanted to simplify the landscape of promulgated agreements for a long time. On the member side, back in 2014 council held a plenary, a big decision-making meeting that brought the entire council together, where councilors started spit balling; it resulted in a motion to create a new Independent Theatre Contract, originally conceived as a sort of algorithm that would generate starting agreements to employers based on data the provided. But for the next few years, progress stalled.
Meanwhile on the staff side, Equity employees were trying to solve the same problem, starting to plot what an ITC might look like. There, too, it stalled, in part due to lack of enthusiasm from members.
Equity member Zachary J. Chiero in Fully Committed at Theatre SilCo in Silverthorne, Colorado. Photo by Graco Hernandez.
From left: Equity member Amanda Tong, Mollie Craven and Equity member Christina Stroup in 9 to 5 at Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia. Photo by Richard Clompus.
"What we were doing was so big and so vast that we needed to create buy-in from the beginning," said Equity Assistant Executive Director Alison Harma. "Who were the stakeholders? Who did we need in the room?"
In 2018, Koster was a fairly new Eastern stage manager councilor when she went to staff and asked the obvious question anew:
"We have all these independent producers, but some are using SPT, while others are using LOAs and still others are just being allowed to use multiemployer agreements like LORT, COST and CORST," she recalled. "Why can't all of these employers use the same contract with the same rules?"
The following year, a second staff attempt to work on the ITC was flagging. When COVID shut down the industry in 2020, many members had (for unfortunate reasons) more time to dedicate to the ITC project.
"It gave us a unique opportunity where this group could really dig in and read through these contracts, read through the language and chew on it," said Koster.
Harma noticed that small groups were important for these conversations, and that enabled momentum to finally build.
"Erin was instrumental in that," she said, recalling thinking, "Let's ride this wave... It was an aha moment for me. In every project we do at Equity, having member buy-in and members understanding the point of the project and saying, 'Yes this is something we need to do.'... Getting that commitment to say, 'We want to invest the time and energy' was the critical factor in us being able to move it forward."
And staff was able to bring a lot from their earlier attempts to the table – if not the language, then the process of wrestling with the promulgated agreements.
Equity members Linda Alper (left) and Michael Hume in Stella and Lou at Rogue Theatre in Ashland, Oregon. Photo by Bob Palermini.
"How we viewed the contracts, how we scrutinize, how we were redrafting the language – we took away a lot of what we learned previously," said Harma.
Collectively, and crucially, the group was able to articulate the goals to which they could keep referring back: The agreement would be legible, streamlined, well-organized and flexible, the kind of document that could replace smaller promulgated agreements.
Equity members Richarda Abrams (left) and Sharon P. Hope in front of the historic Allen AME Church in Cape May, New Jersey, the home of East Lynne Theater Company's Clemans Theater for the Arts. The two co-star in Having Our Say. Photo courtesy of East Lynne Theater Company.
This group became a formal Equity working group and began working with staff to construct the ITC in earnest.
"We tore apart the entirety of the SPT" to start, said Koster. "The working group literally went word for word through the entire thing. There is not a word in that contract that we did not consider. We talked about, 'Is this going to make sense to the employers, to members? Can we write it in a way that will be less confusing?'"
Even meeting regularly, building something meant to last took years, covering every single aspect of working on Equity contract.
Harma recalled exciting days and frustrating days, and something shifted a couple years in.
"It was a very emotional process both for myself and all the folks in the working group," she said. "We realized the immensity of it – the amount of Equity contracts that could really end up underneath it was mind-blowing. That really strengthened our resolve in being able to get the project completed."
Finally, at a special meeting on August 2, 2024, The ITC Committee presented the full agreement to National Council, which voted to approve it. And with that, the ITC was ready to roll out.
What the ITC Solves
The ITC is a bit like Mad Libs, with fill-in-the-blank spaces for everything from minimum salary to numbers of contracts per season. The document that fills in those blanks is known as the terms letter. The terms letter is the meat of what members can expect on the job. While it might only be a couple of pages, it outlines the particulars, from financials to performance schedule. But conditions like safety and work hours are much more closely aligned from theatre to theatre than before.
"The less time we spend having to navigate these differences, the more time staff can spend representing our members at the workplaces we're in," said Harma.
The clean slate of a new agreement also meant an opportunity to use clearer language; a lot of older Equity agreements are written in legalese. Changing even one word of an existing CBA involves a back-and-forth with employers, but the ITC was new, so its creators made it a point to make it easy to understand. And it is structured more clearly by categories (informally referred to as "buckets"): First comes paperwork and administration, then work rules, then financial matters. This makes a particular topic easier to find and juxtaposes it with similar issues; one of the aspects of the ITC that sounds so simple but needed the clean slate to enact.
The ITC has already absorbed some smaller agreements: Casino, Dinner Theatre, Hollywood Area Theatre, Midsize, Cabaret; they are all retired, and with good reason; the Midsize Agreement, for example, was used only six times nationwide in its last season. Equity leadership hopes that the LOAs are next to become obsolete, but it means going one employer at a time.
Olena Hodges (left) and Equity member Carmen Cecelia Retzer in Anima or (Her Soul) at Island Shakespeare Festival on Whidbey Island, Washington. Photo by Michael Stadler.
"It's taken effort on the staff part to help them understand why we're doing this," said Harma. Many employers were all in right away, but others have wanted to take it more slowly and really consider the ITC. Harma is confident its success will continue to snowball.
"I don't think there's any producer who's going to scrutinize this contract and think it's a bad change for them," she said.
Madison Taylor (left) and Equity member Jihad Milhem in The Thin Place at Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company in Boulder, Colorado. Photo by Michael Ensminger.
After all, the ITC means that a theatre has more flexibility within a given season; in the past, if a theatre wanted to mount productions that went beyond the bounds of their seasonal agreement, they would have to negotiate additional promulgated agreements in the same year.
Producers at Theatre Raleigh in North Carolina knew this issue firsthand. After several years of hiring individual Equity artists, they signed onto an SPT Agreement in 2021, when they moved into their current space. Its executive and artistic directors were both longtime Equity members, and they were excited to manage a union theatre and continue to grow. But as a growing theatre, they sometimes found themselves hitting the limits of the SPT. One year, they had to put one production on a different agreement, with its own bond to post.
"We wanted to find a theatre contract that would allow us to sometimes do shows that were bigger than our normal season," said Producing Artistic Director Eric Woodall, as they had their eyes on a 400-seat venue off campus for one production.
Their Equity business rep told them about the new ITC and suggested they switch to it for their upcoming season. The theatremakers were excited and soon agreed.
The ITC in Action
As an Eastern stage manager councilor, Elizabeth Ramirez had heard frequent updates about the development of the ITC, and their anticipation level was high.
"It had a lot of things to get finalized, a lot of final checks, a lot of people making sure that since it was brand new, there were so many I's that had to get dotted and T's that had to get crossed," they said. When it finally came to council in 2025 they thought, "It's finally here!" And very soon, they got to experience working on it firsthand.
Ramirez had a job at the Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Worcester, Massachusetts, working on two productions there. In the past, they had worked on two shows on separate agreements, one on LOA to LORT and one on the SPT. Now, they were both on the ITC, just with different financial terms. That meant different pay levels, for example, but the work rules were more closely aligned.
"Moving from one theatre to the other, you don't have to move from one rulebook to another," they said. For example, "The overtime rules for stage management is night and day between LOA to LORT and SPT," they said. "Now that both theatres are on the ITC, you don't have to think, 'Can I claim it here? Can I not?'"
"That makes our members' experience better," noted Harma. "They can focus on learning the script. The stage mangers can focus on putting their tracking sheet together rather than pick up the rulebook every 30 seconds."
However, a paradox of the ITC is that when it's working well, members – and even employers – might feel little difference on the ground. Harma realized this early on, when she visited the International City Theatre in Long Beach, California, one of the first-ever ITC theatres in Los Angeles county.
Equity members Isaac Lamb (left) and Charles Grant in A Case for the Existence of God at Third Rail at Third Rail Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Owen Carey.
"I sat down and talked to the company after the show and asked, 'How's it working on the new contract?,' and they asked, 'Is this a new contract?,'" she recalled. "At first I was sad. But then I realized they just didn't recognize there had been a change because we had done such a good job.
"What brings me joy is: It works so well for our members. They're not seeing lost protections, 'What happened to a rule that I really relied on?' It's been a very seamless transition for them, and the employers as well."
Back at Theatre Raleigh, for their first production on the ITC, little felt different, which was ideal for the employers who only found "nuanced changes" to the rules they were already following. There were new requirements for auditions, for example, and more access to rehearsal time.
"It's equally as good, if not more specific than the SPT was," said Executive Director Lauren Kennedy Brady. "We're very happy."
What did feel different was the scope of a season, the possibility to try out something new and see what works with local audiences.
"For the moment, this seems like a perfect steppingstone as we figure out the possibility of a second stage series," said Woodall. "On this contract we'd be able to use it on something like that as well... We don't have to bite off something we're not ready to chew."
Theatre Raleigh is open to becoming a LORT Theatre someday, which would mean even more Equity contracts, and the ITC feels to them like a smoother onramp than the SPT did.
"It sets us up for success and gives us that room to incrementally grow, which is sustainable, as opposed to, having expectations and requirements we might not be ready for,'" said Kennedy.
A More Perfect Union
The ITC is new, and a work in progress; staff has already made adjustments in the process on their end. And the protocol for making improvements is baked into the agreement's design.
"It is fun to be part of the first run of this contract," said Ramirez. "Because it's a promulgated agreement, we can flag housekeeping fixes that would normally have to go through a long negotiation process, but they feel more fixable which is really exciting."
When they find something that they would rather rephrase for ease of finding it, for example, "I can call up Alison Harma and be like, 'Please fix it,' and it probably will be."
From left: Vincent DiGeronimo, Equity member Khalid Y. Rivera, Equity member Amy Fitts, Equity member Tiara Whaley and Aaron Penzel at the curtain call for First Date at Depot Theatre in Westport, New York. Photo by Betsy Bacot.
(Harma passes feedback along to eventually go before National Council to approve, and so far, that has been an easy process.)
"It was just a good exercise in the way that our democratic union can do something really big," said Koster. "When you think of all the contracts that were going to be rolled into one, all the staff working on those legacy contracts, councilors chairing those committees, and members working on those contracts, it's humbling to think back on how an idea can be turned into something so impactful. And how meaningful it was to work with all those people on the best possible final product."
"Looking back on it now, it was such a smart investment in our time because we're already starting to see the benefits realized," said Harma. "Things are streamlined on the staff end and it's allowing us to be more present for our members rather than spend time doing more complicated things to get contracts negotiated and set up."
The ITC is a win-win, for Equity members and the employers who offer them jobs. It's a new chapter for how a business rep spends their time. And it's proof that the long days and hard work go hand in hand in the excitement and creativity that make union theatre happen, from Equity offices to rehearsal rooms.
Thanks to the Equity theatres from around the country that shared photos of shows they have produced on the ITC since its launch.
This article is part of a series that explores the Independent Theatre Contract. You can read about its particular popularity in the Dallas–Fort Worth area and learn how the Single Engagement Agreement is streamlining how Equity members work at non-union theatres.