Why Broadway Shows Have 9 Performance Holiday Weeks

Tis the season! It’s a season of merriment and tourism, when Broadway producers hope to make enough extra money to compensate for the dark days of winter ahead. It is also the season Broadway actors complain about—and fans marvel at—how much they are working without additional compensation. But just how much extra are they working? It tends to be a matter of timing of work, rather than additional work.

When I attended Water for Elephants the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Sara Gettelfinger began her BC/EFA pitch by thanking the audience for coming to the last performance of their 12-show stretch. But Gettelfinger wasn’t referring to extra performances in a single week—Water for Elephants simply swapped dark days, so the cast had performed 12 performances in a row, instead of the typical eight. The company received Thanksgiving (which only Chicago played) off, so they had an added performance on Monday, typically a dark day at the Imperial Theatre. Such changes in schedules are common around Thanksgiving, New Years, and July 4. Schedule changes require two weeks’ notice, but no added compensation under the Production Agreement between Actors’ Equity Association and the Broadway League.

The week of an actual extra performance is Christmas week. The majority of Broadway shows have a nine-performance week on Christmas week, which is typically paired by a seven-performance week either before or after (producers’ choice, typically dependent on when the holidays hit during the week). This can result in a lot of performances in a row, depending on when the dark day hits. The Production Agreement states that no extra compensation for this nine-performance week is required if the actor is given off either December 24 or December 25 and a seven-performance week abuts it.  

Producers can (and on rare occasions do) have nine performance weeks other times, with notice, but then they have to pay actors 2/8 of their weekly salary for that extra performance; in other words, double what the actors would normally receive per performance. Producers only get a freebie performance on Christmas week. There are provisions in the contract about avoiding having too many nine-performance weeks, but they are superfluous in practical terms because producers generally don’t want to pay to have nine-performance weeks.

Every year, I hear complaints from actors about the extra Christmas performance sans compensation. However, the related rule went into the rulebook in 1996. It hasn’t been changed in subsequent production contracts likely because changing it has never been a top priority. If it becomes one, then Actors’ Equity can push harder about it during the next round of negotiations. But, as these are negotiations, they’ll likely also have to compromise on something else.