Against Entrepreneurship

HowlRound: The picture has been painted for us. Adapt or die. We in the theatre know this much is true: jobs are scarce, good pay and benefits scarcer. Funding, like audiences, seems to be dwindling. The solution, we’re told, is just as clear—embrace the market, become creative entrepreneurs. This may be a stopgap measure to survive this state of precarity, but it doesn’t alter that state. Indeed, this proposed solution short-circuits the questions of why audiences are dwindling, of why we aren’t paid well for our work. What if, instead of changing ourselves and our art practices to fit the market, we could alter the conditions of the field itself? It is possible. Indeed, it is necessary for the survival of our field.