Actors’ Equity Pushes for Minimum Wage, but Not All Members Want It

NYTimes.com: They rehearse for weeks, often in run down theaters that were once garages or retail stores; perform challenging premieres of new works and imaginative reinterpretations of old ones; and sometimes clean the bathrooms, sell the tickets, or sew the costumes, too.

But hundreds of union actors working in this city’s distinctive and thriving small theater scene are barely paid for their work. And, in an unusual twist to America’s economic fairness debates, many of them say they are O.K. with that.

“None of us is here to make money,” Lynn Odell said recently as she rehearsed a science-fiction comedy at Theater of Note, a 42-seat theater that operates in a former auto-glass repair shop in Hollywood. “We are here for the experience.”