LD On The DL: The Dysfunction Between Theater and Money
Schools and universities churn out students who want to make theater their career — from actors to designers, from onstage to backstage. These institutions impart our next generation with extraordinary skill sets, the totality of which is too great to adequately delineate here. However, one skill always seems to get missed. My business partner and my school missed it, many of our friends’ schools missed it, and the folks I’m seeing graduate today don’t have it either. We are not teaching this next generation how to have a career in the theater and a functional, healthy relationship with money. The consequences for the individual, the theater company, and theater as an institution are far reaching and not very positive.
The first sentence you probably heard at the start of your career in theater was, “You do it because you love it. Not because you will make any money.” This common phrase bears a closer look. It’s a perfectly innocuous statement to all the volunteer theaters or little theaters across the nation. These programs are staffed with people who have day jobs, or whose incomes are not or ever will be theatrically dependent. However, to aspiring theater professionals it’s a kick in the gut. What the individual learns is to divorce the relationship between a career, in this case theater, and money. That’s not a good lesson.
For one it doesn’t even make any sense. But apart from the sheer absurdity of it, secondly, you call into question the definition of “career.” An activity one invests time, skill, and money into without expectation of pay is a hobby. Why would anyone get a four year degree or a masters for a hobby? Three, the internal dynamic created over time promotes burn out and leads to staggering attrition. The young theater professional must earn money elsewhere, since theater and money were artificially separated long ago, in sectors of the economy not pertinent to his or her training. That wears on most people, who abandon theater for a job where career and money are still happily married. The result of this dysfunction always ends similarly for the individual: the former theater professional moves on. “I guess I just don’t love it after all,” they’ll say, as if the notion of fair compensation for services rendered is somehow inappropriate when, in fact, it underpins our entire economy and way of life.
The effect of this dysfunction is bad enough for the individual, however, for the young theater company it leads to even more trouble. The first definition of “company” in the dictionary reads, “A commercial business.” For the rest of the economy the purpose of forming a company boils down to one thing: making money. A company, any type of company, with a dysfunctional relationship to money is a rudderless ship in a variety of ways.
For starters I see actors form theater companies to do, “Work we want to do.” However, they lack any formal training regarding budgeting, fiscal policy, or other generic business skills. The notion one needs little to no business experience to form an actual business is naive and short sighted. Without training in common business techniques, how can the young company be expected to survive? Often, it doesn’t.
Secondly, because of this dysfunction the theater company ignores the most useful metric to gauge effectiveness, i.e., money. Can anyone imagine an ad firm saying, “It’s the unsophisticated audiences’ fault this campaign didn’t make any money?” Of course not.
Third, by not focusing on money theater companies rely on talkbacks as their main source of metrics. This is hardly an effective approach. The grouping of like minded people from a particular community giving honest, unbiased feedback regarding work seems awfully unlikely, and perhaps a little incestuous. Ad firms don’t ask other ad firms if their work makes sense; it doesn’t matter if it makes sense to them. Talkbacks do typically generate lots of love and good feelings. Unfortunately, love and good feelings do not pay the bills or offer real guidance about the young company’s direction or staying power. Success cannot be everyone “loving the show,” while the company posts large losses on the production.
Finally, the formation of a company requires real dollars; I’ve seen people cash out their IRAs to mount a production. If money is this dysfunctional subject nobody speaks of, then probably nobody asked what the ROI is of mounting this show or starting a company. I do not know of a business plan that asks investors for money in return for love and good feelings anywhere but in the performing arts. Rather, it’d be better to keep the IRA intact and produce accessible, pertinent work other people actually want to see and, thus, are likely to pay for.
The story of the young theater company ends much like the story of the young, individual theater professional. At some point the actual toll of this endeavor becomes apparent, burnout ensues, and the company disappears having cost the individuals something even more precious than money: time and spirt.
I think this dysfunction has far reaching, negative consequences for theater as an institution. I don’t have to make the case for a vibrant theater to this crowd. I think we know its potential, most of us got our start there. In our world of powerful, divisive media outlets we are a country with seemingly insurmountable, manufactured, ideological differences. We need and I think yearn to feel connected to each other more than ever. Theater specifically, and the performing arts in general, can be that glue. However, not if our young professionals are burning out by 30. Not if our theater companies, industrial machines for telling our shared story, lack the tools to survive in our economic system. Not when we train our people to ignore the primary means needed for long term survival, money. Nobody but the large, divisive media outlets are saying anything.
This pattern of dysfunction between professional theater and money needs to be broken - for our young professionals, our young companies, and for the theater as a whole. Our colleges and universities are the best place to break the cycle, teaching the next generation to embrace, use, and function effectively with money. Money should empower us, money should enable us, money should validate us for a job well done. It is not the enemy.
Our naiveté of it is.
Lance Darcy is a Lighting Designer, Production Designer, and Programer for Tinc Design & Productions, based in New York City.
July 12th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Very well put…
I came out of these systems in the late 80’s early 90’s, I luckily took business classes due to my interests in college, which should have been required of all theater students, now that I look back upon it. During and after school I was working with 4 ballet companies, two musical theaters, and two universities, all for an annual income around $10,000. It actually forced me to leave the business entirely because I was unable to live in any other way than from pay check to pay check. I eventually wound up in corporate events, completely by accident. I was not even told nor did I know that the corporate world existed. I have since then started two companies in the corporate entertainment field. I try to help guide and mentor anyone who mentions that they want to get involved in theater or the arts, and help them get some real life experience if they are willing. I miss greatly, and would love to go back and do straight theater, but each time I sit and do the math of how much money I lose each time I do, I cannot justify it, but on rare occasions. I only wish that were not the case, and when I do get involved with any of these theater groups to help out, I am looked at as some kind of theatrical mercenary. I guess that my retirement plan will have to be to operate a small theater for the love of it, when money is no longer a necessity for me. Someday, hopefully everyone will figure out that money should not be looked at as a corrupter of art or a theatrical productions it is the reward.
July 12th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Well said. I teach part time at a small liberal arts college and the number of majors keeps going down. Why? Because we keep telling students they will never make any money. Although it is true that many of of them will never have a career in the theater those that do should believe that they deserve to be paid like any other professional.
July 12th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
exactly my line of thinking and the topic of last nights discussion
- want to get in touch & develop correctives/ new & more successful approaches…
there is no such thing as art w/o money (nor dance!! for tht matter - the “poorest child”
in this dysfunctional “family”…) - commercial viability is not an antonym to art - on the contrary, it serves your audience better - it is about people (as in human beings); as there is not art sans people either…
July 13th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Well said. The problem starts with academic institutions who are so isolated from the reality of professional work that they don’t realize (or don’t care) that 95% of the students they train will never pay their bills in theatre. They are just collecting tuition from students and grading projects. If they would broaden their thinking to include the idea that theatrical skills, whether acting, directing, design or tech, are widely used in many other fields they could actually help students find a path that is viable. Tenure, apathy and academic stagnation have kept faculty from thinking outside the [black] box. Curriculum should dump the courses in “classical mythology” and other such wasted subjects and add classes in finance and marketing.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Lance (Morey) et al: now, the question is: wht is wrong w/ theater//how would theater need to change to be profitable? am for years pondering this question and am actually obsessed w/ finding a different concept - any input/ interest in further discussion// setting up a think-tank…??!?
July 19th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
While I agree with your thesis, this will be a tough paradym to change because there are so many people who are willing work for next to nothing that the employing businesses have no incentive to offer a liveable compensation. Low wages are justified by claiming that a “prevailing wage” is being matched. There is no leverage for negotiation because there is a line at the door waiting to fill your position, for less. Collective bargining agreements have helped where they can be enforced but their reach has been somewhat limited due to the extent of competing non-union labour sources and the general economic downturn. Those who did study business are well aware of the supply/demand market forces as relate to labor and consider it their duty to maximize their ROI at your expense.
July 20th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Great essay! I wholeheartedly agree. A couple points.
There are schools out there that do include the business side in the curriculum, but those schools typically address a different, broader part of the market live entertainment as a whole, rather than just focusing on theatre. City Tech, for example (the school where I teach) does exactly this, and our approach is detailed in an article I have here:
http://www.controlgeek.net/articles-and-other-work/2002/9/1/rethinking-entertainment-technology-education.html
We are also currently in talks with our business department, developing an “Entertainment Business” program.
I also teach part time at the Yale School of Drama, and I can say that budgeting and business aspects of the live entertainment business are a huge part of the Technical Design and Production program there. And a large number of recent graduates have headed straight for the for-profit sector of the industry, as have the vast majority of City Tech alumni.
Finally, I think one of the biggest problems that underlies your excellent points is one that needs a much longer article to discuss: a basic lack of relevance to the audience of the product of so many theatre companies. Many of them are simply not producing product that enough people think is worth paying to see. Meanwhile, the independent and corporate live music scenes are humming along (despite, or, probably because of the collapse of the record industry) and no one is expected to work backstage in that industry for free (except, perhaps, as a way to break in and get your first couple gigs). Ringling Brothers and Cirque du Soleil are doing fine, WWE is producing live soap operas two nights a week, Radio City is producing new shows, and the list goes on: Disney, Universal, etc. I’m not saying everything is wonderful in these companies with the recession, but they certainly are surviving and are for-profit corporations that produce a massive amount of live entertainment. Is it art, or entertainment? That’s up to the audience to decide, but they seem to be voting with their wallets, paying for and/or support things that seem relevant to their lives. I have two degrees in theatre and pay to see (on average) several live events per week: concerts, comics, circuses, variety arts shows, science talks, conferences, meetings, training seminars, etc. Those things all embrace and exploit the fact that everyone is in the same room at the same time, and help give my life meaning. But I rarely find any traditional theatre compelling enough to make it worth my time–it simply isn’t relevant enough to my life, and film and TV tell many of those kind of stories better.
I once went to an off-off Broadway show here in NYC where the representative of the prodcuer–Mabou Mines–came out before the show and pronounced (paraphrasing), “We have been >proudly
July 20th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Ooops, looks like my comment got truncated. It was supposed to read:
I once went to an off-off Broadway show here in NYC where the representative of the prodcuer–Mabou Mines–came out before the show and pronounced (paraphrasing), “We have been >proudly in the red
July 20th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Weird, guess it doesn’t like certain symbols, trying again without them:
Ooops, looks like my comment got truncated. It was supposed to read:
I once went to an off-off Broadway show here in NYC where the representative of the prodcuer–Mabou Mines–came out before the show and pronounced (paraphrasing), “We have been proudly in the red for 25 years!” That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard said on a stage.
John Huntington
Professor, City Tech
www.controlgeek.net
July 21st, 2010 at 7:11 pm
John, love your response & utterly agreed re: 25yrs in the red… (one of the many things tht is indeed wrong w/ theatre) - I’ll be in touch for more!
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Good essay. But not sure there is a remedy.
Here’s the breakdown of the problem as I see it:
1. The teachers in our universities have never been responsible for meeting a payroll themselves. They were attracted to their jobs because of the financial security, medical benefits and state retirement pensions. In 33 years in this business, I have never met a professor who has ever carried the weight of managing an operating budget for a theatre institution. The schools who have added Arts Administration programs simply hire graduates of other Arts Admin programs - NOT veteran theatre managers.
2. Most Americans don’t give a damn about theatre. Our audience is tiny, our audience is greaying, subscriber bases are collapsing and the small, emerging theatres don’t know where to start when it comes to developing audiences. There are far more actor/director/designer/technicians than there are jobs. Audiences don’t just appear magically at our shows. Audiences have to be DEVELOPED over time and most theatres spend zero resources on audience development.
3. If we want a large, diverse audience for theatre in America, we have to focus now on introducing children to theatre - not just as audience members but as practitioners. Children have to get their hands dirty DOING the work of theatre, understanding the process and absorbing the ancient values that give our traditions meaning. If we invest NOW in robust arts education programming in our schools (and in our theatre institutions) we will have bigger, more involved audiences in 20 years.
4. Actors and other theatre practitioners will have a living wage when theatre becomes more essential to the communities in which they operate. It’s not the community’s job to provide work for actors. It is the actors’ responsibility to transform communities with ideas. Once that happens, money comes.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The problem is that generally-speaking, theaters operate on a razor-thin line between staying open and shuttering their doors forever. Artistic Directors often have to forgo their urge to present art in favor of empty crowd-pleasing musicals and the such. I’ve worked for several theaters whose entire seasons hinged upon the crowds for Nutcracker. And ever since Reagan, funding for the arts has been slashed to almost nothing and many theaters used this funding for tech staff.
The repercussions of this run all the way down the line, to the point where some theaters recycle drywall screws. And of course this has an impact on pay for technical staff. If producers can get by with volunteers to save a few bucks, they will, but at a cost of quality.
Professional stagehands have a few choices- see if they can hook onto the union, tour, work for a university, or freelance, supplanting theater gigs with much more lucrative freelance corporate gigs. It makes for a precarious existence and horror stories abound about the lack of health insurance or the toll work takes on relationships/marriages.
I’ve been lucky- I’ve managed to make it in this business for almost 20 years, but it hasn’t been easy. During that time I’ve mentored a lot of aspiring stagehands and I’ve been blunt with them- this is a difficult business and it take a lot of hard work and luck to succeed. Happily, I’ve seen a few that have, but others drift off into a world where a steady paycheck, reasonable schedule, and benefits aren’t merely a pipe dream, but considered normal.
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