In 2014, Becky Davis was fresh out of the Coast Guard and worked up the nerve to audition for a play. She set her sights on “Barefoot in the Park” at the Altarena Playhouse, a community theater in Alameda.

She found a source of “joy and vibrance,” and even wound up getting cast opposite the man she would later marry.

But now, joy has turned to fear. Already reeling from catastrophic revenue losses due to the pandemic, theaters will face a drastic increase in expenses — at least 30% of annual budgets, according to many estimates — when they reopen, as they must turn actors, stagehands, technicians, costume makers and musicians into employees to comply with California’s new gig-work law, AB5.