The Link

Over at Parabasis, Issac asks how theatre artists can get donors, subscribers and other key groups behind the idea of paying performers more.

It's a fantastic question.  I think one key to solving the problem is understanding a vital issue separating theatre artists from the public.

As with most things, it's an issue of perception.

I'll try to explain, stay with me:

-----------------------------

Picture a 15 year old boy.  His ambition is to make a living playing football.  To do that he has to go through a three stage process:

1.  Success at the high school level.

2.  Success at the college football level.

3.  Be drafted into the National Football League.

Let's focus on that second step.  When you think about it, college football has a lot in common with many theatres.

In college football, a lot of people get paid.  The coaches, the Athletic Directors, the TV crew announcing the game . . . basically everyone except the players on the field.

Why?

The justification, which you are free to disagree with, is that college football is not the ultimate destination for these players.  It's the NFL.  College football is just a place the players pass through on their way to some place else. 

The colleges may choose to compensation them a little for their time (with a scholarship), but why should they pay them extra?  We are giving them valuable training for the place they are going next, right?

So basically, what has been created is a system where college is the minor leagues to the NFL.

Now to the art:

-------------------------

As theatre and other forms of performance art have given away their place in American life, we have created a situation where the stage is seen as the minor leagues to TV and film.

When people see an actor on stage, or a playwright . . . they don't see a professional who has the ambition to build a life in the art.  They see a TV star in training.  They see a screenwriter in training.

If you accept the analogy, the conclusion becomes clear:

If the stage is just a pass through, something people do on the way to something else, then why pay the artists now?  They'll get that big pay day when they are famous, which is what they want in the first place, right?

Part of theatre's effort to regain lost ground has to include the message that (for some) the stage is a valid and worthwhile pinnacle to a career.

Not the stepping stone, the top.

I think, for the record, that actor union's could be a key body in getting that message out in a collective manner.

But I think it is up to all of us in the field to constantly advance the idea that the theatre profession is . . . a profession.

 

Comments

[Sterling]

Useful post and a great conclusion: absolutely, it is the responsibility of theatre practitioners to solve the problem of low wages.

I think the comparison to college football is well-made and instructive.

Because there is so much money to be made in college football, a lot of effort is spent trying to prevent universities from offering over- and under-the-table financial compensation to players.

As one would expect, in any industry where talent generates wealth, money will be spent to acquire and reward talent, even when it is against the rules.

From this I conclude, the only lasting solution to low wages in the performing arts is to come up with a talent-driven business model that generates enough wealth to create the need to acquire and reward talent.

We can and should nurture the idea that theatre is a profession but professional wages, I think, can only be supported by a functioning and wealth generating business model.

[Guy Yedwab]

I have to say I'm not sure the reasoning you're discussing is necessarily right. I have a fairly narrow experience in the theater community -- work inside of just one of the many regional theaters in America -- but I don't think anyone ever thought that anyone working for the theater was ever going to be on TV. I worked alongside the stage managers, who all drove Volvos between 1984 and 1986, and none of them ever thought they were going anywhere. The actors as well were all basically at the dead end. In fact, if I had to say this, I'd say that the real problem is that the arts administrators viewed the actors/crew as being people who weren't going anywhere--people with no other options.

Television stars, movie stars in the making, etc. would command more money--because of the thought that they might leave. College football, on the other hand, has no incentive to keep college ball players.