Question by DraMuse: Are Membership Fees in Amateur/Community Theatre merely out to get your funds?
Frequently when you do a Community/Amateur Theatre show they ask a Membership Fee from you.
Which I usually put off paying ’cause I figure:
A. There are craftsman that do get paid eg: Director, Set Construction, Writer etc.
B. They are producing funds off your performance every single night the show runs.
Although lately I’ve heard the terms “it’s for your benefit, if anything occurs to you onstage you are covered by insurance”. Even so if something did happen to you, eg. say you fall on one of their set pieces and break your leg – aren’t you covered by public liability anyway? If you broke your leg, had to go to hospital and they refused to pay, couldn’t you sue them for it?
I’m not in the habit of taking men and women to court and (knock on wood) I don’t frequently injure myself onstage – though as an Actor I’m not a large fan of paying for my performance while somebody else is generating funds from it, either.
What do you believe?
Very best answer:
Answer by Jayne says READ More BOOKS
The ticket sales from community or nonprofit theater shows do not even spend for HALF of all the costs.
You are saying the craftsman get paid – they aren’t volunteers. That’s the option this theater has produced, to have those roles filled by paid people. Maybe that’s because that far better ensures the jobs get performed than relying on volunteers for those roles. Maybe that is since they couldn’t get the skilled men and women they required for those roles otherwise.
There is no such thing as “public liability.” If I come to your house and I break my leg, your home owners insurance or renters insurance could be forced to spend that. Exact same for this theater – they carry insurance for injuries, and they have to pay a monthly premium for that coverage. That costs money!
This theater has chosen to be a non-professional theater, in terms of the actors it utilizes. That’s a choice numerous community theaters make: they want to stay amateur, for a range of factors. It may possibly not even be that they do not want to pay actors/they cannot afford to – it could be because the mission of the organization is to give community members the likelihood to be actors.
This theater charges its volunteer actors a membership fee. Girl Scouts charges a membership fee of its volunteers. Boy Scouts does the very same. Several of the nonprofits I work with do the very same. It’s 1 of the numerous issues they do to raise revenues to cover costs. If you can not afford this fee, merely speak to the organization about your economic scenario – they may give you an exemption.
You need to talk to a person that’s in charge at this theater. Tell that individual you would like to greater recognize what your membership fee pays for, and that you would like to much better recognize all of the theater’s expenditures. If, following you see this data, you still really feel the membership fee is unnecessary, then it is time for you to move on to yet another organization.
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