Negotiators for the Board of Directors and the striking actors of The Proposition failed to settle a 17-day-old strike in a long bargaining session Tuesday, but spokesmen for both sides said yesterday that they are "close" on some issues.

Steven Warnick, a negotiator for the striking actors and an actor at The Proposition himself, said yesterday that he is "encouraged that we are now able to sit down and talk about some of these things," but, he added, both sides are still far apart on the "critical and interconnecting issues" of wages, hours and tour days.

The nine actors and four musicians of The Proposition, a five-year-old improvisational group, have been on strike since September 10.

The Board of Directors made what one management official called its final offer Tuesday. This offer, according to Allen Albert, artistic director and president of the board of Proposition Workshops, Inc., gives the actors:

* The right to establish a grievance procedure;

* The right to take spare-time jobs;

* An annual limit on playing on tour, not to exceed 30 days per person; and

* A pay increase of $35 per week.

Each actor currently makes around $105 per week--about $87 take-home pay--for what Warnick calls "unlimited working hours."