Why Theatre People Will Never Be Rich

I know it's really no secret that most of us who work in theatre are not getting rich. But this week I had a realization of one of the reasons this is true: we're awesomely giving. Not only are theatre people generally willing to take on projects for less money than any reasonable human being, we do things for free and/or trade. I've seen this latter act of giving first-hand in the last week.

I am working as the charge artist for a production of The Gondoliers over at Lyric Theatre. My primary responsibility is to paint a 29'x30' drop for the show that will look like this:

Gondoliers Backdrop

When tasked with this job, I asked to paint the drop horizontally because of the feathery quality of the colors. Immediately the TD for the show mentioned using the floor at Musson, a theatre supply company here in San Jose. At first I was worried about how much that would cost, but it turns out that Musson owes Lyric a favor, in fact, they owe Lyric a floor. At some point in the last year, Musson made a boo-boo and had to scramble to paint three drops for a client in less than a week. Unfortunately, their shop floor couldn't accommodate that many drops in such a short period of time. So, they called up Lyric and borrowed their shop/rehearsal space. For free. And now, when Lyric needs a floor for me to paint their drop, I'm at Musson at no charge for a week. For those of you who don't live in the world of theatre, when I painted a drop for CTC, they paid $100 for a week of use of Ohlone College's paint frame (and that was pretty discounted). So, even a highly successful business will offer up their time and space to help out the small theatres. And that's awesome.

Another, more extreme, example of the tradition of giving time without compensation manifested itself when I met the lovely ladies at The Costume Cadre, a collection of independent designers who have pulled their talents and resources to work in the Bay Area as designers, drapers, and stitchers. I met the effervescent Rita when I went over to see about Shady Shakespeare's stock and resources. And she was so generous in what she offered up from the Cardre's supplies/stock/resources to me. But, more impressively, she talked about the time she has dedicated to organizing, stocking, and cataloging the entirety of Shady's costume collection free of charge. That's a big project even in a small stock.

There isn't much else to report, really just wanted to share this realization that from big to small, we're all in the same boat. It's nice to see companies, individuals, and production houses supporting one another as we strive to make this world a better place with our art.

Ask and You Shall Receive or How I Became a Freelance Theatre Artist

So that we are all on the same page, let me recap that I'm wrapping up week three of my open-ended hiatus from CTC. And I've got my form all ready to send to unemployment. And I've still got bills to pay. And CT and I've pretty much decided we're going to (have to) stick it out in our one room apartment for a little while longer.

Our apartment. That is not our bed, just our couch.

But in true self-sufficient, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-fashion, I've been sending out applications and résumés since before I was officially on hiatus. I am happy to report that all of my efforts and frantic e mailing has paid off. Here is how I've been making/planning to make money since April 23:

Week One: Résumé and application blasts to theatres and craigslistings all over the place. By Tuesday I had two interviews with non-theatre companies, one an supplementary education company (read: after-school enrichment center) and one with a print company. The first interview I apparently bombed and the second, the print company, I was hired on the spot. Hooray! I started training the next day, Wednesday. For two days I gave it a go. At $12 an hour, doing graphic design and answering phones and running xeroxes didn't seem so bad. Except I was going to be the only person doing that and was expected to be so awesome I could replace the woman who'd been working for that particular company for over three years and knew all of the account abbreviations and quirks like the back of her hand. It wasn't looking good.

Also on Wednesday, I went to an interview at SJ Rep for a box office assistant position. Many of you may remember I did a stint at The Dallas Opera's box office when I lived in Texas and loved! it! Turns out SJ Rep uses the same ticketing program, had someone leaving the fold, and hey, they wanted to hire me. $9 an hour with hours fluctuating from 10 to 30 a week... well, I thought, it's something. And it's something that is flexible and low-stress enough that I could do other things. So Friday morning I quit the print company, thanked them for the opportunity, and drove to San Mateo to open Pied Piper Player's Once Upon a Mattress.
 

The Queen tries to make Winnifred as sleepy as possible.

Week Two: More résumés and applications including bookstores and Starbucks. Pretty much anywhere I thought I might be employable, I applied. But things that week were pretty low-key and boring. I worked on my friend Margo's website and even my own website. (BTW, now offering portrait and wedding packages!) On Thursday I trained at the SJ Rep Box Office and it was like riding a bike. Sure, there were things that they do differently than the Opera, but it was pretty easy and I felt good about my choice to take the job. And on Sunday I struck Once Upon a Mattress and got the last of my paycheck from PPP and made plans to talk about other work with the company.

Week Three: (That's this week) Everything started to fall into place. Monday I had lunch with the Artistic Director of PPP and we worked out a plan for me to come aboard as the Production Manager for the company, teach during their conservatory, and designing on a regular basis. Tuesday I went to visit family in Oroville.

My sister Hannah and nephew Hunter

Wednesday I worked at the box office. And then yesterday, Thursday, I got a slew of e mails and had two meetings that resulted in 3 gigs (one painting a backdrop, one designing costumes, and one costume supervising) and a call to work over-hire on a load-out for a theatrical supply place in the area. Bada-bing, Bada-boom.

I've done the math. It's not spectacular money for the amount of work, but it's close to what I was making before. And it's on projects ranging from Shakespeare to Gilbert & Sullivan. Which is pretty neat. The thing that has kept me from doing freelance work before is the difficulty at keeping sane. What do I mean by this? Well, in a 9-5 job, even in theatre, there is structure. You go to work, you complete your work, you go home. Sure there are crazy days during tech week and strike, but those are planned in advance, you see them coming, and time is allotted for them and subsequent recovery. As a freelancer, that is on you. Working with five different companies means that you have to be sure that tech weeks aren't going to collide and that you'll have enough time to complete fittings and paint flats and whatever has to happen. And then there is the travel time. And gas. When you work at one theatre you go there and come home. Some traveling may occur for the company, but life is contained. When you work for five different companies you're running all over the city, or in my case, all over the bay area, trying to get everything sorted and done. Sure some work can happen at home (especially costume-related work), but mostly you go to their space and use their tools and then you drive somewhere else the next day... it gets overwhelming.

But perhaps the biggest stress about being self-employed, working gig to gig, are taxes. I've never had more than one 1099 a year, so while a pain, it was pretty straightforward and didn't change my taxes that much. But with this much gig work, I'm going to have to do quarterly taxes or I'm going to end up owing hundreds of dollars I've already spent come April of 2013. I'm not sure why companies can't take taxes out. Okay, I'm sure it has something to do with paperwork and calculations that are far beyond just issuing a check, but can't there be a way to make this easier? Can't there be a way to take the burden of this off the artist? More importantly so that the artist doesn't accidentally spend money that really has to go to the federal government??? For now I just automatically deduct 20% out of the fee and put it in savings. And now with quarterly taxes, I won't get hit with a big OUCH! next year.

So now I can call myself a freelance theatre artist. And really raise my parents' anxiety levels. Woo.

The Great Job Search

Here's the low-down: I'm unemployed. Well, underemployed might be a better term. This week is week two of the open-ended hiatus I was put on from CTC when I turned down the opportunity to design their Summer Rep Shows (more on this at a later date). This is the second hiatus I've been put on, but the first without a fixed end and that involves losing my health insurance. Times are lean in theatre, it would seem.

And so! I've been diligently applying for jobs, both in and outside of the theatre. I'm in Silicon Valley, so I've hit the big places: Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc etc and the national companies: Starbucks, Target, etc etc and the theatres. Oh, have I hit the theatres. From actual listings on places like TCG's ArtSearch to Bay Area Theatre Bums to individual websites of each theatre I have come across (I've got them all bookmarked). It's a lot of work applying and sending out feeler résumés, especially when there isn't much to show for it. And you're stressed out about how on earth you're going to pay your rent in one of the most expensive regions in the world.

The good news: I found a part-time job at San Jose Repertory Theatre in their box office.

The bad news: It only pays $9/hr and my hours will fluctuate from 10 to 30 in any given week.

The also good news: My partner in crime, C.T., got promoted last week and is guaranteed 40 hours+ a week and is making somewhere close to, or over, $15/hr.

The really bad news: This is still not going to be enough.

Let's set aside the fact that I'm back to being uninsured (I had a bunch of physicals and exams before I lost my insurance and so far I'm healthy) because, well, that comes with the territory and I've been there before. And let's just talk about what it means to be living in a 450 square foot, studio apartment which is about to cost us $1050/month and I'm only guaranteed to bring in $90/week before taxes. What, huh? This is a low-point. This is why I am applying to complete reach-jobs at the tech companies. I don't really care about the perks of working at those companies. I just know they are stable and will pay me the living wage of this area for one simple reason: They are the reason that it costs so frickin' much to live here in the first place.

From the article "High Cost of Living Shrinks Silicon Valley's Sizable Paychecks" by David Schepp at Aol.com.

This whole situation has me, for the first time in my life, seriously kicking myself for getting a degree in theatre.

When I chose my major at Grinnell I did it with pride and a bit of rebellion swelling in my heart because I knew that it was a pretty stupid field to go into for financial security, etc. But I was young and wanted to follow my heart. And I didn't want to choose a career path just because it would make me money. I wanted to go out into the world and make art and do something meaningful and be poor because I chose to be poor (not, as was my mother's case, because life sucks and circumstances bore her into decades of abject poverty and welfare). I was your typical, naive idealist.

And when I decided to go to graduate school it was with a more tempered idealism, but idealism nonetheless. I felt that my Master's degree would grant me some kind of security, some options that would be more stable, and help quiet my step-mother's fear of my looming destitution.

Even applying for summer employment during graduate school didn't have me second-guessing myself. I was confident this path would be awesome, if also frugal. Then, upon graduating from UNCG, I landed a job as the Resident Designer/Painter/Teacher at a children's theatre in sunny California. I wasn't going right into teaching! I was getting to move back to the West Coast (a dream I'd been harboring since I first hunkered down in the Midwest for college)! Things were going to be awesome!

Except it's expensive to live in this part of the country. And the recession is still taking its toll on the "unnecessary" items including the obvious: the arts, and the not so obvious: school bus transportation (important when you work at a children's theatre). But even two weeks ago when I heard Republican Candidate Mitt Romney talk about choosing an engineering major over his own field, English, I firmly believed that I had made no mistake in my choice of study. (And was pretty incensed about his statements as a mark of privilege as well as the wrong mindset when you want to have a society that also has beauty. Why not, instead, talk about needing to provide funding for art, writing, those non-engineer fields... but I digress.)

It's funny how money, or the lack-there-of, will make you question everything you hold dear. But unlike many of my posts in the past where I wonder about continuing in this field because I've been unhappy with this, that, or the other project, I'm now wondering how I can continue when I can't even afford to buy myself new bras. I've been so fortunate that the last few times I've been in this mess I've had a partner to help support me as I get back on my feet (ironically enough that time also ended with me starting work in a box office). This time it's tougher because we're living somewhere more expensive and C.T. is just now getting into making good money. We're going to make it. We have to. But as I look at job postings many things cross my mind that never did before: Maybe I should consider getting out of theatre. Maybe I should consider getting out of non-profit. Maybe I should consider moving back to the South where the cost of living is lower. Maybe I made a mistake.

Maybe I made a mistake.

No one likes to admit that they were wrong. Especially not me.

But all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and keep sending out those résumés.

I'll keep you posted.