I had lunch recently with a friend of mine who is a lighting designer. He is probably one of the most talented designers I have come across, a powerful unique voice, meticulous, insightful dramaturgical understanding, and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is currently transitioning out of live entertainment and considering going the route of architectural lighting design, or possibly something else entirely. His reasons? In order to have enough time to enjoy his life, he can’t make a living. In order to make a living, he doesn’t have time to enjoy his life.
This can be a dilemma many people face but it is exacerbated in the fields of theater, opera, and dance. LORT, the bargaining organization for regional theaters, has the official position that they do not owe designers a living wage. The theaters, which are ostensibly in the business of making art, do not feel responsible for paying the artists they employ enough money to live reasonable lives. Leaving aside the issue that the upper management and staff of these organizations do typically make a good living wage, this idea is flawed to its very core. The artists, the people who actually make the art, are not expected to be able to live off the work. Something is wrong here.
The result of this brilliant financial strategy on the part of regional theaters is that not only will they save thousands of dollars each year (yes only thousands, and intended sarcastically) but they will drive talented people out of the industry. This friend of mine is no small potatoes. He is highly respected within the New York theater community, has won awards, gets flown around the world to light shows, and yet finds the economics so troubling that he can not both live well and do the work he loves. He is not alone.
Many people I know, some very talented designers, work in fields not of their choosing because the economics of the field they love are so terrible. The issue does not limit itself to designers. One of the best master electricians I have ever had the pleasure of working with left non-profit theater to go work in a more corporate setting because the administration would not consider giving him a raise. In most situations, a worker who delivered under budget and ahead of schedule, all while pleasing the clients he interfaced with would be rewarded. But then, he worked on the wrong side of the building. Art, it seems, is not valued by arts organizations. Yet the top paid administrators made easily five times his salary. And the theater community lost one of the best electricians I have known.
There comes a point when the question arises, is this worth it? Is it worth working 80+ hour weeks for months on end only to end up with barely enough money to cover rent and bills? There is a bit of mental psychology that must be done when working like this. There is a rule I once learned the hard way by breaking it myself. I fast realized if I wanted to keep going I could never do it again. Do not translate into an hourly wage. Typically the results, in our fee for hire work, are far below minimum wage. The show I calculated out for ended up somewhere around thirty cents an hour. And this is at a professional level.
At the Broadway level, the minimum rate for a lighting assistant comes out to just under twenty dollars per hour. Not terrible, but you are working 14 hour days for weeks at a time, so you can have no life while this is going on. At the low end of the scale people have no compunction asking someone with years of experience, an advanced degree, awards, and so on if they would give up two weeks of their life for a fee of a few hundred dollars. It doesn’t hurt to ask, but then if you accept, demands are made on your time that are beyond the pale of reason.
Making a living in the theater is possible. Making a life, not so much. The number of designers who wake up at 50 suddenly realizing they forgot to get married and have kids, or who send their kids off to college knowing less about them than about their assistants, or miss a major wedding anniversary for a technical rehearsal, is far far too much.
We are presented with a bit of a catch-22. The organizations which hire us have stated explicitly that they will not take care of us. It then becomes incumbent upon us to take care of ourselves. But if we do that, and allow ourselves to have a life, we are not working enough to support that life. Something has got to give. Too often, that means talent goes elsewhere.
Perhaps there was a time when the economics of it all were not so unfavorable. But looking around now at the state of the business it appears that the solution does not reside in the non-profit theater world.
Lucas,
Another excellent post. This is too true and very very upsetting. I trained in theatre as a lighting designer. I moved to NY to work; did a lot of assisting and work as an electrician. I even lived in the basement of a theatre for three months when I lost my apartment, just to stay in NYC! After a couple of years, I went over to the dark side and went to work for manufacturers training people on consoles and working in sales and marketing. I stayed connected to the business, but on a side where I could make a living.
There theatres take advantage of the never ending supply of new designers coming out of schools every year. It is a tough situation and I don’t see a fix coming anytime soon.
Keep up the good writing and I hope that you continue to make art and a life!
Best regards,
Michael Eddy
This is so sad. The heart and soul that many people have for theatre is cast aside for money. Plenty of us aren’t in the business for money, but when you can’t survive what do you do? It’s amazing the ridiculousness of the discussion of union(s) or a union that is paying stagehands 300,000+ a year (#2amt). But alas what can be done? what can be done? Great post, great insight (just waiting to be cast aside)!
Thanks for this. I’ve always assumed that designers and other technical staff received much better pay than what you describe here because of their specialized training. An eye-opener!
Most people do.