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NEWS Hate doing your taxes? Leave it to VITA
When it comes to the agonizing chore of filing a tax return, actors often shoulder a particularly harsh burden. Actors typically have various streams of revenue, countless deductions and minds more suited to creative pursuits than crunching numbers. It’s little wonder why so many performers wait until the April 15 deadline and beyond before they file.
Enter the Volunteer Information Tax Assistance, or VITA, a free service administered by the IRS and sponsored by the Actors’ Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists. The program was created to help actors and stage managers complete federal and state tax returns on time. With an all-volunteer staff, VITA operates from February to April in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Orlando. Its volunteers are trained in the tax needs specific to performers, who tend to work as independent contractors rather than full-time employees.
VITA’s New York site reopened at the Actors’ Equity offices this month, taking appointments from more than 300 actors and stage managers within its first day of operations, according to a statement released by Equity. “VITA has helped actors save millions of dollars with legitimate deductions and expenses, not to mention tax preparation fees,” said VITA co-founder Conard Fowkes. “Given the challenging, transient nature of the entertainment industry, actors may have tax returns from several different states ... and high expenses that relate to ‘getting the job.’ At VITA, we do it all.”
Since its founding in 1979, VITA’s popularity has soared. In 2005, the program prepared 1,919 federal and 3,455 state and local tax returns for union performers.
Walk-in assistance is available at VITA’s New York office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (the site is closed on Tuesdays). Applicants are encouraged to arrive early and not to wait until the April 15 deadline. For more information, call 212-921-2548 or visit the VITA site at 165 W. 46th Street, 14th Floor. MPAA to Mexico: ‘¡Ay,
Caramba!’
Film group urges
tougher laws as pirates south of the border cost industry $500M
The Motion Picture Association of America is heading south of the border in its crackdown on movie piracy.
In an effort to unify North America on the piracy front, MPAA chief Dan Glickman is urging Mexican President Felipe Calderon to toughen his country’s anti-piracy laws. Last week, Glickman, Calderon and Sony lobbyist Jim Free met in Mexico City to discuss a number of issues facing the film industry.
According to the MPAA, the motion picture industry loses $500 million per year due to pirating activities in Mexico. Mexican lawmakers have introduced an anti-camcorder statue in the Congreso de la Union, but it has yet to become law. Both the U.S. and Canada have already passed rigid anti-camcorder laws. Meanwhile, Glickman also urged Calderon to get behind an “ex officio” statute, which would allow law enforcement officers to bring an action without waiting for a complaint.
Calderon did express support for the two changes, but the bills have to go through the Camara de Senadores and the Chamber of Deputies before the president can sign them into law.
“Mexico is an important market for us, but they have a very high rate of piracy,” Glickman explained.
The Mexican crackdown is just the latest anti-piracy action taken by the MPAA, which has been working fervently to reduce piracy in the U.S. Last year, the group teamed up with the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting to increase public awareness regarding the harmful effects of illegal DVDs recorded and sold in New York City. -Jennifer DeYoung
INSIDE INK
By John Rowell
BRAVE NEW THEATER
WORLD
I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for a fragmented, non-linear, psychosexual multi-media theater experience. And down at HERE Arts Center, James Scruggs’ RUS(H) is set to deliver just that. Part of HERE’s 2007-2008 mainstage season that includes seven new multi-disciplinary productions spanning theater, dance, puppetry and multimedia work, RUS(H) follows the story of Rus, who is drawn into a shadowy world of sex, drugs and violence after being involved in a car accident. Using innovative technology — including video puppets — and original salsa music and tango-inspired movement, RUS(H) is sure to be a feast for the senses — or, perhaps, depending on your point of view, an assault! Which may just be part of the point, after all. Directed by Kristin Marting, performances begin Feb. 27 at 3LD Arts & Technology Center. www.here.org.
TRUTH WILL OUT
Award-winning playwright Victor Bumbalo’s (Adam and the Experts) provocative new drama Questa takes a look at a gay bashing in reverse: Paul, a young gay man, is guilty of murder (or perhaps of just an accident) that was brought on by the homophobic taunts of a straight young man. Obsessed with guilt, Paul begins following the mother of the young man whom he killed — desperate to bring relief to her suffering. This tangled dramatic web is being brought to life by Wings Theatre Company in a world premiere production under the direction of Jeffrey Corrick; the cast includes Krista Amigone, Dana Benningfield, Jason Alan Griffin, John Haggerty, Jeremiah Maestas, G. Alvarez Reid and Danny Wildman. Performances have just begun at Wings (154 Christopher Street) and opening night is set for March 1. Check out www.wingstheatre.com.
CALL EMPIRE TODAY
It’s always interesting when a play receives a premiere long after it was written, yet is suddenly discovered to be contemporary. That just may be the case with Year One of the Empire, by theater critic Elinor Fuchs and historian Joyce Antler, which presents in bracing, yet hilarious detail the exact moment when America became an imperial power—which was, according to the writers, the Philippine-American War at the turn of the last century. That war’s rich brew of U.S. belligerence, election politics, and public outrage offers shocking parallels to American wars in Vietnam (which inspired the play) and Iraq (which made the play contemporary again.) Directed by Alex Roe, Year One begins performances February 29 at The Metropolitan Playhouse. Call 212-995-5302.
ANOTHER
DESPERATE-IN-SHOW BUSINESS STORY?
So if your Los Angeles singing career is flagging, what else can you do but run the Web’s hottest online husband-and-wife porn site? That’s the premise of Joseph Gallo’s Warning: Adult Content, a new play that chronicles the cost of accidental celebrity in these days of interactive media and social networking. Featuring Christopher Halladay, Julie Tolivar, Eric Michael Gillett, Marnie Klar, Joseph Barbarino, John Calvin Kelly and Jennifer Laine Williams, Warning is directed by Robin A. Paterson and receives its world premiere production courtesy of Bridge Theatre Company. Performances are up and running at Theater 54 @ Shetler Studios, now through March 9. Visit www.thebridgetheatercompany.org.
THE IO-WAY
Though he’s better known for his fiction than his playwriting, National Book Award-winning author Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) has nevertheless been carving out a name for himself as a West Coast playwright in recent years. Now his latest play, Des Moines, about an unlikely assortment of people who come together for an impromptu—and substance-fueled—party, will receive a five-performance run at The Flea Theater, directed by and starring stage-and-film actor Will Patton, as well as LaTonya Borsay, Emily McDonnell, and Deirdre O’Connell. Tickets for the run are free; just call 212-219-2020 for reservations.
AROUND TOWN
Talk may not be so cheap after all when it’s Two Men Talking, the two men in this case being Innovative Theatre duo Murray Nossel and Paul Browde, who tell and retell the story of their friendship in a frank and improvised account, making for quite a hybrid theater evening. Performances have just begun (Fridays and Saturdays) at The Barrow Street Theatre, and continue through May 3. Dan Milne directs. 212-239-6200 |
