Audition season is in full swing in New York Metropolis, and non-union performer Sierra Lai Barnett has provide you with an answer to one of many largest challenges — the unofficial sign-up checklist.
Non-union performers attend Fairness Refrain Calls (ECCs) and Fairness Principal Auditions (EPAs) in hopes that after Fairness performers get seen, there’ll nonetheless be time for casting to see non-union, through which case they may get seen within the sign-up checklist order. Image this: performers exhibiting up in Midtown Manhattan on the daybreak, typically as early as 5am, hoping to be one of many first to get their identify written on the checklist. For years, non-union dancers, actors and singers have handled the chaos of lists at auditions. In recent times, although, issues have began to vary. Folks started taping up items of paper on the surface of the audition buildings at midnight deciding that’s the begin of the checklist. That approach, once they come again to the audition round 10am, they’ll say they have been first on the checklist, versus individuals who confirmed as much as the audition just a few hours prior. It was a complicated, irritating free-for-all, one of many downsides of being Non-Union.
The NUU Checklist, a digital sign-up platform, was born in February 2025. Barnett noticed the issue and determined to repair it. “I used to be uninterested in ready for another person to do it,” she says. In response to a press release from the NUU Checklist on Instagram about this problem, “Those that are afforded extra versatile working hours, or have exterior monetary help methods, could also be extra readily capable of regulate their schedules and spend hours ready outdoors within the chilly within the coronary heart of Manhattan, with out driving themselves to the purpose of exhaustion and risking their well being, a privilege not afforded to these performers who stay hand-to-mouth, counting on survival jobs or parallel careers to stay.” The digital checklist additionally prevents individuals from signing up a number of individuals directly as a consequence of one sign-up per electronic mail. Prior, individuals would rotate who confirmed up in midtown Manhattan early within the morning to signal names on the checklist, usually teams of mates’ names at a time.
Whereas individuals need to see this variation occur and there was a constructive response to the digital checklist, there’s a gray space, and each the digital checklist and bodily checklist exist. For those who surprise why bodily lists are nonetheless getting chosen within the room after this new digital kind, Barnett says, “On the finish of the day, performers will select no matter path will get them on the Official Non-Member Signal-Up Checklist, as a result of that’s the one checklist that actually issues when it comes right down to getting seen at an ECC or EPA.” Barnett provides that when the digital checklist is chosen over the bodily checklist, “it’s a success not solely due to the apparent win for a digital system, however as a result of this resolution was made collectively. And once we as a group select to maneuver ahead on this approach, we’re selecting to place the well being and security of one another over the precedence of getting seen first, and that could be a large cultural win for our group.”
For clarification, which checklist is chosen for use at every audition comes right down to the performers within the holding room and a majority vote. It’s lower than the AEA screens to resolve which checklist to make use of since they’ll’t present partiality for one checklist over one other. Barnett is a non-union performer herself, so she is aware of how essential equity is. When requested if there’s a battle together with her utilizing the NUU Checklist because the creator herself, she replies with, “After creating the lists for the week, I simply attempt to use it like anybody else.” With ready and buffering by means of the hyperlink, sign-ups create a little bit of a lottery system, making certain nobody has an unfair benefit.
With the expansion and recognition of the NUU Checklist, there are upcoming plans to launch a brand new, streamlined platform. Barnett has discovered assist from working actors who’ve talents as software program engineers and different skilled abilities to help with this new model. Group is and can proceed to be crucial takeaway and Barnett’s focus.
Creating the NUU Checklist from a want for change, she ends our dialog by saying, “Working as a NU actor mustn’t really feel like you’re the backside of the barrel, scraping previous each other to get seen. We’re a obligatory a part of theater all throughout the nation. We’re a viable and useful possibility for filling phases with nice performances. We’re a group that’s making an attempt to evolve and alter, and I’m actually completely satisfied to be part of all that.”
Study extra concerning the NUU Checklist on Instagram: @thenuulist.
By Abby DeReamer of Dance Informa.
*For the reason that publication of this text, the AEA has made a press release that non-Union lists are not allowed at auditions, inflicting the NUU Checklist to halt their digital sign-ups for the remainder of audition season.
