Programme note

Some final(ish) thoughts on theatre.

my new desk.

This is a dispatch that I’ve commissioned because no one else would have me! I have now abandoned my career working as a theatre producer and have moved to work for a trade union - specifically, Equity. But I can assure you, I wasn’t applying for full-time theatre jobs also (and there were A LOT of producer gigs going around that time): I was looking at trade unions first, and then charities and higher education as my next choice industries for my pivot.

And so, I’m now 30 and have a permanent job for the first time ever. I have a desk that is mine alone, something I haven’t had at a workplace since my first job after uni, back in 2013. For some people, an admission I have a spot, a desk, an office, and that I’m comforted by this stability might mark me out as a mundane normie. I don’t mind: different things work for people.

I feel that continuing to write about theatre counts as a conflict of interest with my new work, so expect considerably less of it from me in the future. Here are some parting thoughts:

There are lots of reasons I started thinking about leaving, but the main ones, from 2019 onwards, were mainly about money and health. I’d like to keep the option of having children open to me, and, as I want to raise any I might have in my expensive expensive hometown of London but don’t want to rely on ‘marrying well’ to make childcare costs work, I knew I’d need to make some career changes. I’ve seen how much Statutory Maternity Pay is, and seen how it’s basically the sector default in terms of benefits for employees.

I got sick (or noticed I was sick) between the end of 2018- spring 2019. Shout out to the notorious damp and poor air quality down at the Vaults for hammering that home: I went three times during the 2019 festival and got sick afterwards each time. I had brain fog - honestly a pretty terrifying experience despite my already having a reputation for aimless ramblings (“You’ve gone all Virginia Woolf,” as my old housemate would say). After ultrasounds, blood tests and MRIs we found out what was wrong with me. Long story short, I believe it was stress related. A wake up call! You would think…

I would up doing ‘one last job’ after deciding to take it easy. By the end of the year, I was in six grand of debt. The worst thing is that all that debt, and the rather miserable box office takings after the venue’s weekly hire fees deducted, still wasn’t enough to pay everyone. In a sense, there’s not that much difference between being £6k down and £9k down, but I’m saying that with the knowledge of my change in financial circumstances (full time job just as we entered lockdown; more freelance work than before and, something I received after getting myself out of debt and figured wouldn’t happen till I was 60-odd, namely inheriting money). Back then, that Christmas before the world changed, I quite literally lost the will to live. At the start of the new year, I realised that producing wasn’t good for me, not least because I was giving it more of myself than I could afford.

But it wasn’t just that producing wasn’t good for me: I wasn’t good at it.

I stored a lot of tension in my body while producing. I noticed this when I returned to it semi-recently. I hold a half breath in while an Arts Council Project Grant is out for assessment; when the Spektrix reports come in for shows, detailing the box office income, I would upload them, first thing in the morning with the same compulsion some people get with Wordle. This might sound like I was gripped by an admirable passion for my work, but I was flappy as hell.

I don’t believe in ‘Imposter Syndrome’ with regards to my life and experiences (I’m medicalised enough already, thank you very much), but it’s interesting that, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of jobs I’ve had in the arts since 2015 I’ve got as they were responding to an imbalance in the given (sub)sector. This is everything from climate justice to having a full maintenance grant while at uni, but much of the time, it’s to do with me being a black woman. And it is also the case when people approach me to produce their work (via email) as much as it is through more formalised jobs from organisations. I have an ego; in a way it can be a little bit slighting to feel like I’m being approached for things that are not up to me rather than ability.

But it’s hard because I’m clearly not convinced of my abilities all the time: I negotiated up a day rate once and felt so guilty about my unearned greed I genuinely struggled invoicing for the amount. This guilt spread elsewhere, I suspect, and I fluffed a potentially interesting writing commission for a publication I’d never written for last autumn around the same time. I don’t expect pity for this; I’m just laying it out.

The things I’m best at wrt theatre are when I’m part of a conversation: reading scripts for a venue or prize; shortlisting or selecting artists and projects for commissions or other opportunities; writing about the sector. The latter is an interesting one and maybe outlines the ways in which I failed as a theatre worker: I’d say I have insightful and curious things to say about work, be it a revival, new writing, performance or an adaptations, and it’s a curiosity underpinned by an interest in the cultural world beyond the stage, but I’ve not been asked by a theatre to write one of those little essays that go in the programme, nor, say, moderate a post-show discussion. This is perhaps an entitled wish; as I say, I have an ego. But it’s not a wild one, either. I mention it because, I guess, I’m reflecting on the feeling that my time in theatre was marked by fulfilling a sector “need” in the easiest way possible - we need black women producers, so let’s get this Oxbridgey middle class one - vs there being space for me to contribute in ways that might’ve felt more sustainable. It is difficult, this knowledge of being tokenised, because you have to carry on and do your work regardless. But it has its impact: white people suggesting you could ‘guilt trip’ a prospective employer into interviewing you because their company makeup is currently too white and not being able to get too angry because isn’t that how you’ve paid your bills the last half decade?; prominence for visibility’s sake; the longer term quelling of one’s ‘spirit’ I guess, of knowing you’re there to redress a balance. It can take time to recover and regroup from it, and evaluate fairly your abilities and shortcomings.

I mention shortcomings because I think it’s really important not to believe the hype. And also not to sell yourself on account of attributes you either have no say on (a ‘black woman producer’) or that will change. If your brand rests on being young, what happens when you age out? There will always be someone fresher, more youthful and zippier than you coming round the corner. Encourage people to want to work with you because of your taste and skills and network and vibe, rather than your birthdate. Especially if you’re a woman!

This is hard to do when theatre programming feels increasingly built on blandly identarian lines. I don’t think, for instance, I could get a slot as a new voice if I wrote a play about sectarianism in a west of Scotland community - why should I get to write about where I’ve been (I lived in Glasgow a couple of years; a choice I made) rather than where I’m from?

Just last week, I was yet again recommending Lauren Oyler’s NYT piece What Do We Mean When We Call Art ‘Necessary’?, this time to a group of students at Central for a session on criticism. I don’t want theatres to market shows to me on the basis it’s ‘bold’ and ‘vibrant’ (aka Black and Asian). I want you to let me know it’s really fucking good and I’ll be kicking myself if I don’t get a ticket and come along with a friend. I want to be surprised. I see theatre to spend time with characters and worlds and noises; I can read a thinkpiece on x important topic, or journalism exploring a given community on my own elsewhere. You have to do more than just plonk ‘the underrepresented’ on stage a couple of drafts too soon out of the oven and guilt audiences into attending (their liberation can be bought for the price of a ticket, you see) and critics into heaping stars onto because they’re white and ‘knew nothing about…’

Theatres have to nurture talent and sometimes that means being more exacting in the writing process. Friends who have written for tv and musicals have commented on the reduced feedback and softer balling with playwriting. I know there isn’t money or time for this enhanced process right now - maybe the NPO ask could be for fewer commissions and more enhanced time with the literary and dramaturgy teams. At the moment, tv work is paying for much-needed additional drafts from playwrights and that’s not sustainable. Without it, theatre will just seem like ‘crap telly’ in terms of quality control. And it isn’t.

I’m talking about playwriting here because I don’t think there’s buy in from our larger subsidised venues (not festivals) around new work. It’s a shame.

When I programmed something as part of a takeover of a venue a couple of years ago, colleagues in the building weren’t interested as the focus was on an upcoming season launch. Later that summer, the work made the British Council’s list of performances the international showcase delegates should check out while at Edinburgh Fringe. When I saw their names on the board, I felt excitement and relief, and then a renewed sense of embarrassment that I hadn’t done a better job of selling to the team the merits of work by two artists who were neither in their twenties, nor were they based in London. It didn’t feel like there was enough starry ‘clout’ (which fades btw; see my warnings on ‘youth’) nor did I sell the work as the dreaded ‘necessary’. And so again, people weren’t excited about the thing that wasn’t a play. It’s maybe my biggest regret and most saddening aspect of my theatre work.

You won’t be able to find what I’m talking about directly, though - less than a year after we did our takeover, I checked the website to grab some copy about the scheme we were on. Our cohort’s names aren’t on the website, nor are our project predecessors.

If you want to check out new work and are around late May bank holiday weekend, I’d recommend going to Disrupt Festival at Cambridge Junction. (Full disclosure: I used to work there, pre-pandemic.) Disrupt, formerly Watch Out, often has the sort of stuff you might catch at the fringe but, if you’re London-based, it’s a way more affordable (less icky) option. I found live art and contemporary performance/theatre when I wanted raucous, brash, and non-thinky plays. When that stuff is good, it’s refreshing and a laugh and has a bit more in common with comedy than it does trad comedy, even when it’s not trying to be funny. The best work isn’t medicinal, whatever label it takes.

They are not your family; they are your employers. Know your rights. And, crucially, know how much everyone is getting paid. If I had the time, I’d start a pay audit survey for arts administrators - get in touch with BECTU though.

On that note, given the hiring crisis (alas, I cannot link to Alice Savile’s Exeunt piece on it because the site is currently hibernating), it’s particularly galling to see places list salaries with £2k salary ranges (ie £22-£24k pro rata) ‘dependent on experience.’ Unless that money is going directly to a training budget - directly! - just give them the top amount anyway because you’ve explicitly said you have the resource for it. It feels mean to do otherwise, particularly in this economy.

While audiences are not exposed to the variety of theatre work some might wish, I think it’s worthwhile being mindful that, as people don’t have access to it, you have to be careful not to chastise people for their «artistic ignorance». I fear the ‘beyond British plays’ people don’t realise how off-putting they can sound, even to their fellow makers. Surely we don’t want a climate where if someone hasn’t been to Berlin, say, to see that kind of work, they’re stupid and parochial? Lobby local programmers instead.

That said, I feel for people who have to sell large venues atm. I know a lot of people got very het up over Rufus Norris’ point about Netflix and Amazon etc making it hard to book actors who can sell out the bigger stages but…it’s sort of true? People are reassured by the presence of telly/film actors - check around with your family and friends for their reaction to a bit of star casting. People are nervous bookers these days. EVERYONE is losing people to tv and film - there’s a dearth of production managers, technicians and stage managers with experience at the moment, and experience is valuable on some of the bigger more complicated shows as it’s not fair to put a relative novice in at the deep end.

As a result, it’s worth considering how commercial concerns balance against inventive programming. Particularly as it’s been a while there’s been a big international hit transferring out of the RSC or NT for a while: the likes of Les Mis, War Horse, Matilda. The sorts of shows whose royalties and residuals keep the lights on and the front of house employed and the commissioning budgets topped up for years to come. Because while these venues are subsidised, they are not supported through the Arts Council(s) to an extent earned income is merely a ‘nice to have.’

And it’s not just NPOs: I’m hearing that the success rate for under £30k project grants in London is at about 5% currently, so Broccoli isn’t even bothering to apply for ACE support for the remount of Before I Was A Bear (on at Soho in June; book now! It’s dynamic pricing, so the faster you book, the cheaper it will be for you). Instead, the company is relying on box office income and sales from merchandise (a teatowel - please buy here and free my cupboard of the remaining stock) to pay the designers, director, stage manager, writer and actor, plus maybe some rehearsal space. Even if we sell 70% of the tickets across the run, the producer won’t take a fee. And that’s with the support of Stage One and East Street Arts and it being a solo show, so a relatively small budget.

Join a trade union. I would say that, wouldn’t I? But this year and next are crucial as negotiations are taking place between the recognised unions in the sector (BECTU, Equity, WGGB and the MU) and the relevant management associations (SOLT, UK Theatre & ITC). Theatre twitter can do some things, sure, but there’s nowt as strong and meaningful as genuine industrial actions.

Feed into the conversations by telling us about your pay, yes, but also your conditions too: hours worked, digs booked and abandoned due to poor quality, extra jobs taken. Union officials won’t necessarily hear the industry gossip so going through those more established processes is where it’s at.

I think many of us are intimately familiar with that ways in which theatre twitter is flawed, even accounting for all of us who have been #OVConnect’d and met friends and collaborators there. Learn about the frankly undemocratic defamation and libel laws in this country, but also the grievance process of the organisation you’re working with, contact details for their (chair of) trustees if needed, or the relevant relationship manager, if they’re in receipt of public funding. Activism relies on solidarity (feeling) but also knowing your rights and the frameworks in which we operate. I’m wary of an organising model which sees the @ as the ultimate tool for action (much too punitive for my liking) and there’s too many landlords on there for it to feel like a genuinely radical (as in ‘root cause’) space.

There’s also the question of delineating boundaries between work and life, and safeguarding, and considering the ways a public twitter profile can erode that. Being horny on main if you’re also facilitating workshops with young people…idk I just wouldn’t risk it bar bland chat about generic ‘dating’. Perhaps that’s unfair or rigid of me…I think it also speaks to the fact I don’t think it’s fair such a casualised, underpaid workforce feels the need to be ‘on’ online all the time to catch the right people’s attention to get opportunities. And let’s be really honest, you can get opportunities from there!

Speaking of frameworks and structures, we need far less credulous arts journalists. Across the board, profiles aren’t as robust in the UK as they are in American publications (it’s probably down to budget, right?) but it would be great for interviewers to research claims or gather background to contextualise claims and statements. Arts journalism is often closer to cheerleading than scrutinising - but the beat includes reporting on an industry, so the conditions in which people are working (the business of show) shouldn’t be ignored.

While I wasn’t the greatest producer, I still don’t think producing is ‘hard.’ I mean that generously; I don’t want artists to feel like the stuff that gets done to support their creation is impossible for them to understand. Budgets are ways of telling the story of a given project, often more succinctly and effectively than the words of a funding bid. The lines you include - access, holiday pay, contingency, hospitality - show what you prioritise. Start big, then shrink according to the given constraints you’re working in.

Budgets can also let you know about someone’s character, as money so often does. Two examples:

1. I come on board to R&D an opera at the start of 2020 (I know, I know…it was meant to be the actual last gig, after the previous last gig, and it was tempting to work on something low stakes because there would be no box office to anxiously track, while in a new challenge in the shape of a different artform for me). There’s been a producer before me, who’s worked on an ACE bid. I take a look at the budget submitted. The producer has proposed a fee of £180 per day for their ten days’ work, while the second producer would be on £483pw for two weeks. The same number of days…but almost double the fee. If everyone on a project bar you is on the agreed union minimum agreement, that tells a much clearer story about your commitment to equality and the respect you have for your collaborators than any mission statement on your website can provide.

2. An artist I was working with was struggling to navigate Grantium, the arts council portal for funding applications. Fair enough - it’s not a particularly intuitive system. They came unstuck uploading the budget, because it looked as though the amounts I’d written for expenditure didn’t seem to add up with the total amount asked for. (It did, as it turned out, once you included contingency). Rather than increasing the total ask from ACE, or reduce the fees equally across the main creatives, the artist chose to keep their fee intact, and told me afterwards that they’d reduced the amounts for the director and producer. At that point I knew that even if the show ended up being a roaring success, I wouldn’t want to work with them again.

Much of the push for access and kindness within the sector has a focus on freelance artists. I get it but arts administrators get tired, sick and fatigued too, and often don’t have the same recourse or permission to state their personalised situation or needs in their autoreply or email signature as makers can. People don’t expect, or even want, the fundraiser, marketer, spreadsheet wrangler or invoice processor to bring their ‘whole self’ to work with them. Nevertheless, if you want someone off a project, or have to have a difficult conversation (and sometimes you do: that’s just business), schedule a meeting with good notice and an inkling as to the agenda - always preferable to an evening phone call out of the blue.

Producing is a practice that often has a feverish, competitive ‘I’m so busy!’ energy circling around it. I suspect this is a way of mysticising a role that is largely made up of highly transferable, but ultimately not that glamorous, administrative and operational work. It also contributes to an impression of scarcity of time available to bag good or in-demand producer before they’ve got too much on. It’s a result of a culture that regards work to be the same as personal worth. It is probably a massive hindrance to organising, particularly as producer’s work is considerably less physically demanding than technical practitioners, stage management and performers - it will take longer for a producer to feel the effects of burning both ends of the candle. Being busy can be exhilarating, but those fumes aren’t the same as being able to afford to take meaningful time off, or save for one’s future.

The Edinburgh Fringe in its current state just feels like a hamster wheel of exploitation, substandard living conditions and getting oneself into debt, masked by the joy of having a late night pint of Fosters out of a flimsy plastic cup with fellow theatre folk - a drink that costs more than an average hour’s work up there can make you during the month. It is not, to put it mildly, free range: I’m not sure how a producer can claim to be interested in access or team wellbeing and sanction going up and validating the overall infrastructure even if their production is in some way subsidised. I don’t think I can even stomach going to visit as a tourist this summer. The smell of the impending burnout will hit me like the first whaft of the breweries do when you get to Edinburgh by car or bus rather than train.

If you’re a theatre maker who doesn’t think the fringe will work for you: don’t feel guilty for not being able to ‘hack it.’ It’s a myth that you have to merrily go along with your exploitation to secure better work down the line. Another world is possible.

A lot of schemes offer mentoring when the competition is sufficiently fierce the candidate probably would be better off with money rather than (yet another) encouraging chat.

One time, I had an interview for a fellowship (another targeted scheme, before I decided I was done with them). The following Monday morning, I got back from Morrisons, feeling chirpy and smug about being able to do my shopping off-peak because I was part-time/freelance. As I sat down, I got the email saying I hadn’t got the gig.

I was taking off my shoes when I read the email from one of the EDs who had interviewed me. It was as complimentary and effusive as these things go. I was too early in my career for the opportunity - they sort of knew this when I applied but were interested in interviewing a few of us in a similar position so we could meet. It also said ‘we would be delighted to support you in other ways that might cross your mind…’ I looked down. Both my socks had holes in them; I couldn’t justify repurchasing clothing with problems that only I could see at that point. I started crying: the only honest response to that offer was the vulgar request for some paid work I didn’t have to fundraise for. In that moment, the opportunity to pitch an idea felt so distant from my immediate needs and capabilities.

This cycle or rejection and hope can turn people bitter. The person who sent me that rejection email could probably afford nice shoes and socks on their salary, I remember thinking resentfully. Meanwhile, I’m in two overdrafts already and haven’t had all the invoices come through for the show that was opening that same week.

I don’t think it’s feasible to give people feedback to the extent it sometimes get proposed online - as with submissions to literary agents, there simply aren’t the staffing hours and sometimes the feedback might be too harsh to share - but I know that it is in response to a feeling like constantly being on the passive end of a generic, cold rejection. I don’t know how to fix that, really. I just see that dampening of spirits often, including in myself, and it makes me sad. Whether you stay in theatre or not, you have to be able to certain a certain kindness towards yourself and others or else what’s it all for? We have to be people, first.

There are so many passions a person might have in their life. So many things they might do. It’s not a betrayal to deprioritise one thing in order to get another. And if you don’t like the new thing, I’m sure you can always go back: I hear there’s some good people are leaving theatre, meaning there’s some vacancies.