Arena Stage, and Morris Kaplan, an attorney. Peter Zeisler was appointed the first president, with Thomas Finchandler as vice president and William Bushnell, manager of Baltimore's Center Stage, as secretary. There were 26 member theaters at the organization's founding. Until then resident theater troupes negotiated individual contracts with Equity; most of them used modifications of commercial theater contracts. In some instances the theaters operated under the terms of Equity's new stock contract, however, resident theater managers have long felt burdened by what they call Equity's "one production" type of contract used on Broadway. Categories Theaters are categorized into tiers A through D. Tiers B+ through D are determined by the weekly actual box office receipts averaged over the last three complete fiscal years. No theaters can move in or out of Tier "A" Categories and box office receipts are as follows: "B+” $110,000.00 and above "B" $70,000.00 to $109,999.99 "C" $45,000.00 to $69,999.99 "D" $44,999.99 and below For some purposes, the "C" category is split into "C-1" and "C-2" based on seating capacity. Member theatres There are 75 member theatres listed on the 2018 LORT website: References External links Theatre in the United States Lists of theatres in the United States