Equity to seek overseas artist agreement with producers

An agreement governing the use of overseas artists in Australian stage productions was terminated in 2012

Australian performers are deeply concerned about the number of performers being imported to work on local musical productions and have given their union an overwhelming mandate to take action.

To gain feedback on how members wanted their union to deal with this issue, Equity recently held meetings in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne, had hundreds of phone conversations with members and met with theatre casts to discuss the issue.

Equity will now seek negotiations with producers’ body Live Performance Australia (LPA) for a new agreement that provides an adequate framework to govern the use of overseas artists.

The previous agreement was terminated by LPA without warning several years ago and attempts at the time to renegotiate it were refused.