What could incite right-wing talk radio to stick up for Seattle fringe theater and make bleeding-heart actors talk like red-state Republicans? Last week, KVI (along with TV news and the dailies) jumped on a story that sent fringe theaters and a few small-government polemicists into a whirl: the state Department of Employment Security audited Taproot Theatre and concluded that the theater had incorrectly classified its actors and technicians as independent contractors when they were, in fact, employees. That means small theaters can’t continue the longstanding tradition of doling out modest stipends. The alternatives are to stop paying artists altogether or treat them like regular employees, paying minimum wage and unemployment and workers’ compensation taxes.
Bigger houses like ACT and Empty Space largely operate by those guidelines already. Small theaters living on razor-thin margins would be buried by them, as would Seattle’s performing arts scene. Similar employment-law tangles in Oregon have caused cutbacks and cancellations of annual music festivals.
Since the audit, theater folks have been digging through the state code, trying to find passages that would exempt artists from the standard employee classification. Some look promising (a Labor and Industries policy guide suggests actors and other “creative professionals” are exempt) but L&I and Employment Security use different standards and the law is too vague for comfort.
“We’re getting so many opinions,” said Steve Lerian, president of the Washington State Arts Alliance board of directors. “We need to do our homework, get the facts, and have a conversation with state officials.”
Everyone will lose if the auditors’ current interpretation sticks. Fringe theaters want to reward actors and technical staff as best they can, even with a humble hundred-dollar stipend. By ostensibly protecting “artistic employees” from exploitation, the state will force theaters to either abolish the stipends, requiring everyone to work as volunteers (a hilariously counterproductive solution), or run them out of business.
“If the market would bear raising ticket prices that much, cool: we’d pay minimum wage,” Lerian said. “But the public won’t go for that.”
Small arts organizations have a few options:
The best-case scenario: sit down with state employment officials and hammer out a mutually agreeable interpretation of employment law that will allow everyone to continue business as usual.
Take the state to court, which would be a slow, expensive pain in the ass.
Lobby the state legislature to pass an employment exemption for artists in its next session.
Go underground. Building-code headaches, employment-security law, parched arts funding, grumbling about lousy critics… the time is ripe for the rebirth of the speakeasy, where the bar is unlicensed, the building is unsafe, and the economics are laissez-faire.
