My show is still 4 hours away from opening, and yet we’ve already been talking about some exciting stuff for the next show. We want to do a bunch of online media - podcasts, vidcasts, maybe a commercial - both to promote the show and to (here comes the marketing speak) optimize the audience’s experience of the show and of SOSE. We’re being uber-diligent about sorting our eggs this time, which is why conversations have started already. We’re well on our way to deciding how much of the music will be put online (and CC‘ed), and sorting out the Equity rules for taping and distributing rehearsals online. We just got the Equity official response on that, and I thought I’d share:

(G) Websites. For the Theatre’s website only, the Producer may use up to a total of up to three minutes of rehearsal and/or performance footage (of which no continuous sequence shall exceed 30 seconds) without additional compensation to the Actor(s) involved, provided the Actor gives consent that such footage may appear on the theatre’s web site. Use of rehearsal and/or performance footage on any other website shall require Equity’s written permission. This does not preclude the Theatre from being linked on other websites.

Also, I should note that you can extend these times, but you’d be required to sign an additional contract with Equity, and likely have to compensate the actors.

This seems almost comically restrictive when I think about all the exciting things that can and should be happening with technology and performance, but it’s what we have to work with. It really underlines Equity’s role as the mainstream media equivalent for theater. I understand their desire to protect actors from having entire performances webcast without compensation, but 3 minutes seems a bit ludicrous, especially for rehearsal footage. And the re-posting restriction pretty much eliminates any viral marketing techniques. (For epipahny, I posted a video on my MySpace page, with the code available for re-posting. This is a common MySpace practice, and if the video was good enough, could really help your marketing cause.)

But, this is what we have to work with, for this production anyway. I suspect that most of our media will thus be made up of interviews, and we’re exploring the possibility of shooting some footage of the actors in character outside of the theater to use for a commercial of sorts, and b-roll for the interviews. But I’m thinking even more long-term, to some of the shows I’m percolating deep in my mind that include synchronized online portions. I’m sure Equity would have no idea how to begin to handle that.