A ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed Performers

Many performers are relying on charity. The Actors Fund, a service organization for the arts, has raised and distributed $18 million since the pandemic started for basic living expenses to 14,500 people.

“I’ve been at the Actors Fund for 36 years,” said Barbara S. Davis, the chief operating officer. “Through September 11th, Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 recession, industry shutdowns. There’s clearly nothing that compares to this.”

Higher-paid television and film actors have more of a cushion, but they, too, have endured disappointments and lost opportunities. Jack Cutmore-Scott and Meaghan Rath, now his wife, had just been cast in a new CBS pilot, “Jury Duty,” when the pandemic shut down filming.

“I’d had my costume fitting and we were about to go and do the table read the following week, but we never made it,” Mr. Cutmore-Scott said. After several postponements,…