Day Light Day of Rest is probably the most mis-understood rule in the rule book.
The Lort rule is
(
In addition to the regular day off, there shall be a daylight day of rest for each
member of the company subject to the following:
(a) This shall be made available for each production but not in the seven-day
period up to and including the official opening.
(b) There shall be at least one daylight day of rest within each six-week period of
the Actor’s employment.
** These first two rules is important to note if you don't hit opening night by the end of the 6th Week of the contract. (For example, at my theatre, we rehearse 4 weeks + 1 week of tech + 1 week of preview). So . . . somewhere in there, I need to take a daylight day of rest somewhere in there. AND . . . it can not be the in the week before opening (which in my case is preview week). So somewhere during rehearsal and the tech week, you need to choose one day where you don't start rehearsal until 6:00p.
(c) The day selected shall be by mutual agreement, but should there be no such
mutual agreement, the assignment of that day shall be made by the Theatre no
later than three weeks prior to the day of rest.
The mutual agreement issue I never have dealt with, as I pick the date before rehearsal starts - I usually find a date the director has a conflict. And it's almost always during the 4th week. But my understand is that cast would pick the date, and it would be approved by management, or management would give a list of days, and the actors would choose from it. (For example, it would be a bad idea to do a DDR on a costume shop wok day, since you would loose costume fitting time.) Now, if you need to take the DDR before the third week, then you would need to discuss with the cast, and get their approval on the date you have chosen - I have never had a cast NOT approve my recomendation.
(d) The Actor shall not be called on a daylight day of rest before 6:00 PM.
(e) The designated day of rest may be changed upon one week’s notice.
(f) During the Actor’s final production, after the official opening or two weeks
following the first paid public performance, whichever comes first, the day following
the day off shall be a daylight day of rest except when there is a matinee
performance or emergency rehearsal but at least once in every three-week period
or part thereof .
So then the day after the day off is automatically a daylight day of rest (unless there is matinee) - you need to schedule one every three weeks. (I make it a habit to schedule one every week.)
(9) If an Actor is engaged under a single contract for more than one production, there
shall be at least one day within each six-week period during which the Actor shall not
be called before 1:00 PM.
Now, if an actor is on a linked contract, then their daylight day of rest can end at 1:00p. (Which for me is nice, since we have one day we can't start rehearsal until 1:00p anyway.)
INTERESTING NOTE:
Here in Washington DC, we have talked to our business rep and have been approved to "FLIP" the day light day of rest. So, instead of rehearsing 6:00p to Midnight, we will rehearse on Sunday from 10:00a - 4:00p. (I have the cast vote on this on the first day.) This allows actors to leave early on Sunday to go home to New York or see theatre in town. Otherwise, the DDR rest make sense to do on a Tuesday, so you have the day off on Monday, and then most of Tuesday off. But . . . since Tuesday is a big costume fitting day, we avoid that as much as possible.
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