Author Topic: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread  (Read 5920 times)

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RuthNY

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Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« on: Jan 06, 2009, 08:19 am »
Expanding on the Meal Break thread already in existence, for you AEA SM's, here's a new, hypothetical scenario to bat around:

Your meal break is scheduled for 1:30-2:30pm.  At 1:30pm you are still working and the Director wants to finish the scene, no matter how long it takes.  Some of the actors in the room are due back after lunch and some are not.  Additionally, there are actors not in the current scene (and therefore not in the room) who are also due back at 2:30pm.  So, the Director doesn't stop, and continues until s/he has completed the work, say at about 1:50pm and then calls a one hour lunch break.

Assuming the extra 20 minutes do NOT put the company into any kind of "over five hours" scenario, here are the questions:

Is this illegal, overtime, simply rude, or the Director's prerogative?  If you call it overtime or illegal, show a clause that supports this in the applicable rule book and show a penalty, if any. (If your argument is that the span of day has to be announced 12-24 hours before hand, show an example of a rule book that provides for a penalty, if the announced span of day is changed "on the job.")

If this has ever happened to you, and your cast/Deputy has objected, what did you say/do?

If this has ever happened to you and you have spoken to an AEA Business Rep. about it, what did they say/do/advise?

What do you do, if anything, for the actors due back at 2:30pm, who did not know that the earlier rehearsal session ended late?

What else can you think of (costume fittings, etc.) that might complicate this scenario further?



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EFMcMullen

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #1 on: Jan 06, 2009, 10:11 am »
To start my response, many years ago, very early on in my union career I worked with an artistic director who didn’t want to designate the lunch break as part of the rehearsal day.  Being young and not wanting to be taken advantage of I called the Business Rep (SPT).  They said that only the span of day needed to be announced, not what you were doing within that span of day.  As a “professional” theatre I still feel knowing whether or not you have 2 or 5 hours before a meal break is just common courtesy, but hey, you came prepared for anything.

That aside, I have had to push lunch break in the past to finish things up.  Depending on cast size, generally if it is only five to ten minutes and a large musical I don’t worry about things on the backside of the break.  They can wait.  If it is a small cast I do notify everyone involved.  However, when fittings or other things are scheduled that are going to start backing up, I try to impress on the director the need to get things finished faster.

I have never had a protest from an Actor or Deputy.  Most have always wanted to put closure on a scene or run a dance sequence once more before leaving it for lunch.  And generally speaking I am pushing things by 5 to 10 minutes not half hours or hours.

But all this being said, the “span of day” is not being changed.  If rehearsal was scheduled to end at 6:00, it still ends at 6:00 not 6:10.  Again, something to remind the director of, that they are short-changing themselves on the other side of the break.


MatthewShiner

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #2 on: Jan 06, 2009, 03:04 pm »
It's true.  All you need to publish is the span of the day.  You can change the lunch break when ever you want, as long as it is within the rules stipulated in your contract (LORT, for example, five hours before the meal break.)

I do this all the time, the goal to be finishing up something before the break, so as not to call people back after the break if they are not needed for the next thing on the schedule.
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hbelden

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #3 on: Jan 06, 2009, 08:34 pm »
Early in my career I had a Deputy say delaying the start of the meal break was not okay; he acted as if it were outlandish anyone would suggest such a thing; he gave the "twelve-hours' notice" as support for his position.  Since he was also the star of the show with the best resume, and since it really wasn't a hardship for anybody, we came back after the hour break and worked on the scene again.  Knowing what I know now, I probably would have not given him an opportunity to object in the first place (I think I said something like "Would anybody have a problem if we..." to introduce the idea).

Nowadays, if I think the lunch might shift a few minutes or if I have an actor-lawyer in the cast, I asterisk the meal break on the schedule announcement with a "Time approximate" note.
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RuthNY

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #4 on: Jan 06, 2009, 09:29 pm »
"Actor-lawyer!" Very good.  I am so stealing that phrase!

Nowadays, if I think the lunch might shift a few minutes or if I have an actor-lawyer in the cast, I asterisk the meal break on the schedule announcement with a "Time approximate" note.
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stagegal1

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #5 on: Jan 06, 2009, 11:54 pm »
It is my general practice to not announce meal breaks ahead of time because of these problems.  I will usually say that we will take a 90 minute (or 60, depending on vote) break starting sometime between 1:00 and 2:00, depending on a good stopping point.  I try to keep the same actors called after break as before, if possible.  I can also usually tell if we will be running late in enough time to have a PA call the actors to give them a later call.  If an actor needs to have it be more specific for a particular reason on a particular day, I will work with that.  I have almost never received an objection to this. 

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #6 on: Jan 07, 2009, 11:33 am »
I will give a general start and end time for lunch but I've bounced it around based on what we're doing at the time.  I've seen that actors like to know approximately when they're going to be eating that day so they can plan around it.  Also, it gives the director a goal time to look toward while they're doing their work.  But as long as it doesn't pass that 5-hour mark, you're ok with the changes.

Rebbe

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Re: Hardline Meal Break Expansion Thread
« Reply #7 on: Jan 09, 2009, 09:03 pm »
I have never had a protest from an Actor or Deputy.  Most have always wanted to put closure on a scene or run a dance sequence once more before leaving it for lunch.  And generally speaking I am pushing things by 5 to 10 minutes not half hours or hours.
That’s generally been my experience, too.  If there is one actor who seems annoyed about pushing the break back, I’ll try to go up to them and quietly explain that I’m sorry we’ve gotten off schedule, but the rules do allow us to continue working until X time.  I also agree with others who have said that AEA rules don’t require us to specify the break time.  I have had directors who don’t want to get locked into a break, so I’ll advise actors that break will be “no later than” whatever the five hour mark is.  If an actor is scheduled to arrive after a break, I’ll try to call them if we are significantly behind.  Often I know where the actors are coming to the theater from,  and whether they are close enough that knowing we are 20 minutes behind means they can wait 15 minutes to leave their house, or if they have a long commute and will already be in transit by the time I know how far behind we are.

A complication to this would be if an actor currently rehearsing wasn’t needed in the second part of the day, and therefore made another commitment for after the scheduled break time.  I work mostly SPT contracts, where many actors have jobs in addition to acting.  In that case, if we got to the scheduled meal break and the director wanted to keep going but an actor stepped forward and said they had to leave on time, I think that would force us to stop there.  One might argue that, if I didn't put a release time for them on the schedule, all actors should plan to be at rehearsal for the entire span of day (unless there was a pre-existing conflict), even if the scenes listed for rehearsal are not ones they are in.  But in reality I don't know that I'd feel comfortable forcing that issue.  Does anyone have experience being the "bad cop" in that kind of situation?
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