Just Curious...
I'm just curious: just how is it that this business model is seen as something that theatre people should aspire to? How is it deserving of defense? How is it that our reaction isn't outrage and a demand that something change? I read this and I shake my head. Time to reboot.
Comments
From what I understand, it's doable to make a living in theatre -- maybe not securely, but doable. Having said that, I think the best option is to get a second job. Most people buy the waiting tables thing, but honestly, that's just a bad idea -- and another blog, for that matter.
Thanks for the advice in your comment on my blog, by the way. Appreciate it.
it's really not that different for actors - even down to the declaring bankruptcy.
unless you have a teaching position or run a large theater - there is NO making a living in the theater
it's not "doable" - no one tells an engineer to get a second job WAITING TABLES for godsake.
Granted, they're single and have no children, so their expenses are lower, but it's doable. The trick is to go where the jobs are and not to limit yourself. My cousin is a professional actress who limited herself to Birmingham, AL because after her mother died, she wanted to stay near her father. Now, I don't know how well you know the theatre scene in Birmingham, but there's one professional theatre, and she worked there for peanuts.
My friend James, on the other hand, is constantly in work. He's got gigs lined up for the next year, and he hasn't had a break in employment in at least three years. At least, he hasn't had breaks that he hadn't already planned for.
There are dozens of friends that I know that work full-time in theatre: whether for small theatre companies or large, whether on tour or regional, whether in NYC or Iowa.
You wanna limit yourself to Chicago or any other city, that's fine. Get another job to support yourself.
You want financial security, teach.
Yes, ilannoyed, in the current paradigm, it is very, very difficult. Which is why we need to ditch the current paradigm. It is idiotic to get into an art form because you love it, and then sell your soul. It reminds me of prostitutes who love their pimp, and so go out and sell their body in order to support him. Yes, it happens, but it is sick sick sick.
Now, before you go off on my ass about "what can we do about it," let me say that that is what this blog is about. A new paradigm will be forthcoming as the weeks go by But at the moment, it is important to note just how sick the current paradigm is.
And a sidenote: I wish you all would quit talking as if teaching theatre is the secure side of doing theatre. They are two entirely different professions that require entirely different skills and entirely different focuses. Being a theatre artist is not part of the same continuum as teaching theatre. The idea that it is is why we have so many abominable theatre teachers who once were professional theatre artists and think it is the same thing. For my money, we should stop seeing the MFA as a degree that allows people to teach. That's just me.
fo·cus (fō'kəs) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. fo·cus·es or fo·ci (-sī', -kī')
Ever since I got busted for foci by a McGraw-Hill editor, I have stuck with focuses.
Low-pay for theatre artists in a capitalist society has always been presented to me as a problem of supply and demand - too many people want to do it, and there's simply not enough money in the system to pay them all.
I'm not using that as the cop-out which it is for a lot of other people. I'm simply using it as a jumping off point for my own meanderings. If that is, in fact, the problem, then we either need to a) increase demand or b) decrease supply. (or, alternately, relocate to a not-quite-so-capitalist society, but I'll leave that option off the table for now)
Option A actually gets a lot of attention in certain circles. From questions as immediate as "how do we get people to OUR show?" to the far-ranging ones of "how do we increase theatre's value to society-as-a-whole?" Unfortunately, a lot of those discussions never go beyond the theoretical wanderings that theatre people share over a couple of beers.
(And, of course, nobody EVER talks about option B - decreasing supply. After all, we all want to pursue our dreams, and nobody really wants to be seen as the grinch who points out that maybe not everybody can or should do this for a living.)
Right now, for me, that's not a bad thing. I've been in one small section of the country for so long, traveling regularly would be nice. But you're absolutely correct that this needs to change somehow.
Obviously, it strikes a truth.
Of course, no-one wants to produce, so maybe there's just a little too much truth in it.
But it's a truth for more than just artists.
"You want financial security, teach."
I am continually dismayed at the frequency of this kind of attitude and I, for one, am frightened of the prospect of these people teaching. I don't want them leading a classroom. Not one of kids: we certainly don't need any more disaffected teachers getting their mitts on our youth, and not college students, either: what does this say about the future of our art if more and more of our instructors are doing it just to make a buck?
I thank you Scott for making your point about teaching/doing in your comment.
Those of us who choose to teach, as well as perform, direct, etc., because we think theatre education is incredibly important and worthwhile for many kids and young artists, get unfairly and dispiritingly tagged as taking the easy way out, or even as being less qualified as artists than those who attempt to ply their art (often impossible, as we've noted here) full-time.
I think the idiom "those who cannot do, teach" should not only be pulled out of our mental file cabinets and shredded, but replaced with its opposite. "Those who cannot teach, do" makes sense because a good teacher should (usually) be able to do the thing they teach fairly well. But not everybody who does that thing fairly well is suited to teach it.
Of course, this pours into a greater problem facing our country, in its attitudes on education. I, for one, think that we as artists should hold a better opinion of education than the rest of the population, considering that—and I'll bet this is true—most of us do what we do because of someone else who taught us something about it long ago.