Artists as Administrators

I hear from time to time that of a supposed glory days where acting was a profession. A profession that supported many with a living wage. That one of the biggest problems we face is the lack of a living wage for artists. Administrators have taken over the institutions and kicked the poor little artists out.

A few weeks ago, I rewatched Stage Door. It's got a pretty damn good cast, Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rodgers, Lucille Ball to name a few. It's about a group of actresses struggling/starving to make a living in theatre. One girl hasn't worked in a year, she can't afford food. (Spoiler Alert) She kills herself. Another is a rich girl trying to become an actor. Her father pays for the production with the stipulation that she play the lead--so she'll fail, and never want to be an actor again. Both women were up for the same part. One became a star, her opening night performance fueled by the guilt over the others suicide.

Stage Door was made in 1937. Far Fewer actors made a living then than now. While I fully agree that regional theatres have failed in their original intent to provide consistent employment and stable companies, artists who are willingly complicit in a system that treats them like chattle are not without blame either. Actors are only chattle if they allow themselves to be.The notion that someone can make a full time living doing nothing but acting has never existed in reality except for a tiny fraction of people at any given time.

In today's Guardian, Chris Wilkinson asks what happened to the actor manager?

And it is certainly quite possible that many performers simply have no interest in the managerial side of the theatre. After all, it is an inherent part of a director or producer's job to be a good manager, and so perhaps they are just far more suited than most actors to the job of running a whole organisation.

Yet I can't help but wonder whether this lack of performers in positions of leadership is a sign of a deeper malaise in an industry that persistently infantilises actors and forces them into subservience.

There are many jobs in theatres around the country that have many full-time jobs. None of them are on-stage. I know a lot of artists that make a living wage in theatre. They don't get it from acting, they work in development, marketing, ticket sales etc. Basically all of the jobs that actors don't want to do (at least not those aspire to a career as an ACTOR.)

And so we get the divide between artist and administrator. Adam confesses that he is an administrator.

My name is Adam Thurman and I am an arts administrator.

It seems like the current trend in the theatre world is to make that term "arts administrator" a dirty phrase.

To some artists we are the keepers of the wealth, gaining salaries and health benefits at their expense.

We are the people that build the bloated institutions that produce the subpar art for the masses. . . .

. . We are not perfect. The system we work in is flaws. Some of the flaws are our fault.

But we are not the enemy and sometimes it feels like are are.

The divide between artist and administrator is real for most of the people in theatre. The effects are easily discernable. The causes have many differing creation myths. And talking about is it nothing new. Back in the 80's TCG had identified the problem and had a series of meetings with artistic leaders across the country. Those discussions were published as The Artistic Home: Discussions with Artistic Directors of America’s Institutional Theatres. Reading it it sounds like a time warp. Little has changed.

There is only one way the gulf between artist and administrator will subside. Get rid of it. It's a two part process. Artists need to step up and do many of the chores they bequeathed. Those that are the work that created jobs at institutions. Institutions need to adapt as well. In the 80's the talent drain (artists moving out of the theatre) was on the forefront of conversations. Many institutions instead of changing, dug in deeper. Only to be eclipsed even further.

Hiring artists as staff is not only sensible, it is logical. Employees who have a sense of ownership of their company almost always outperform those who are just there for the money. Artists who have a sense of ownership of their company almost always outperform those who are just there for the money.

Now I've heard that actors aren't equipped to do the tasks that are needed. Hogwash, says I. Many of those positions are what pay actors in their day-jobs--albeit in different industries."It's too hard to perform and work other jobs." Is another one I hear often. Yes it is hard. However most of the arts institutions I know of tend to be far more flexible with hours for artists who are working on a show than much of the corporate world. It is hard. It has always been hard. Mediocrity is easy. Bitching and waiting for a handout is easy. Making your chosen calling a viable living is hard, and it is only going to get more difficult.

Let's face it, unions have failed in the present age. Let me say that again. Unions have failed. They have failed for many reasons, and in different ways. The auto unions failed because they were so busy trying to protect salaries of the highest paid factory workers in the world, that they forgot to look out for those who couldn't get on the line. ( I forget who said that last week--but it was the most succinct way of putting it I've ever heard.) Nepotism is rampant. In many unions, the only way to get hired it to know or be related to someone there already. Those people who couldn't get a union job looked elsewhere and ceased to care. The jobs moved away.

Growing up in Michigan I remember 1983 vividly. I was young but I remember watching every family I knew worried who's job was gone next. My father worked for the prison, which was far more stable than any job on the lines. He was laid off. He would have been permanently gone except for a twist of fate, the person one place higher in seniority, worried about being cut loose, got a job in Tennessee and moved. Things had gotten so bad they were laying off prison guards. After months of that finally things started to get better and my dad, and the others who were left, started working again. And most people moved on with their lives.

We want the cheapest products we can get our hands on, no matter where they come from. What the person who makes them gets paid takes a back seat to us saving fifty cents on a can of tuna. Most unions have forgotten the roots of their formation. That solidarity among all workers was the only way to a better life. More and more jobs in union industries are moving overseas. And unions get blamed for it. But I only know of one union that would boast of a record breaking year that almost half of it's membership worked at least one week in the last year. I can't think of another "profession" that would brag about those numbers, and yet every year more and more students graduate from colleges to make it as an actor. Note, that means doing nothing except for getting paid to act.

Now, I know it is not the job of a union to create employment. A union's job is to create safe working conditions. But something has to change. The reality is that the work on stages is a fraction of the work it takes to get a show up, and accordingly those on stages get a fraction of the compensation. Until more artists take control of the mechanisms of production, take on more of the tasks required to produce theatre, things will only worsen.

If institutions are to place more priority on artists, artists need to be a part of the institutions. The days of an army of artists making a living solely on the boards, never really existed. We need to stop clinging to that notion and take control of our livelihoods. And if more artists were wearing multiple hats: acting and sitting in marketing meetings, directing and working in the audience development offices, stage managing and working the box office, writing plays and grant proposals-- if more artists involved themselves with the day to day operations of theatres, their knowledge and priorities would quickly become a part of the fabric of institutions.

Artists, administrator and audiences would benefit (and probably see better theatre.)