Founded in 1912, following the dissolution of the Actors' Society of America, it had its constitution and bylaws formalized in 1913 with Francis Wilson elected as its first president. In 1910 the Actors' Society president Thomas Wise had remarked, “The motto of the Actors' Society is ‘equity.’ It is their desire to establish an equitable contract, equitable for the actor and equitable for the management.” The need for “equity” arose from the gross abuse of performers by much callous management. Actors often had been stranded far from home, had been forced to rehearse for weeks without pay, and frequently had been given little other consideration. The growth of the Theatrical Syndicate, or Trust, had only aggravated matters. Making but small headway, the actors struck in August 1919, closing virtually all Broadway shows. Performers held a number of benefits to draw financial support, and the public, looking on the actors as friends and aware of the indignities they had suffered, responded wholeheartedly. George M. Cohan, himself a beloved performer, and the Producing Managers' Association organized a rival organization, the Actors' Fidelity Association, enlisting many distinguished, more established performers into their camp. But numbers told, so Equity prevailed. With the coming of the New Deal and its support of organized labor, Equity sometimes grew brazen and destructive. For example, its refusal to allow Eva Le Gallienne and her Civic Repertory to offer Sunday performances probably doomed that fine group. Always sensitive to foreign (read British) actors taking jobs away from American performers, Equity refused to allow Jonathan Pryce to re‐create his London performance in Miss Saigon (1991) on Broadway until producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the entire production. In recent years the minimums and bonds demanded by this and other unions have been a factor in stifling production, shrinking the road, and forcing musicals to perform in auditoriums that are really too large for live performances, although the avarice of producers has played no small part in this last absurdity.




