Thursday, December 06, 2018
Radical Inclusion of Parent Artists
HowlRound Theatre Commons: Women in theatre are warned not to have children because motherhood will derail their career. If they choose to become mothers, they are warned to keep pregnancies secret from potential employers. Once those children arrive, parents are discouraged from asking for what they need, despite the prohibitively high cost of childcare and intense rehearsal and production schedules, especially considering artists generally get paid low rates. But there’s a movement happening in theatre communities all over: parent artists are bringing these particular challenges they face into the light and are advocating for change.
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I think my favorite part of this article is the picture of the moms around the table, scripts in hand, babies in pappose. I have been told before that if I wanted to be successful I should not expect to have a family, and I’d be “lucky” to get a partner in this industry. When I was younger and heard that advice I took it with a firm nod and “This is what happens I guess” attitude, set on being a good worker bee. Now I think if someone were to tell me that I’d laugh and tell them to stuff it. Just because Equity allows a 10/12 doesn’t mean we have to have a 10/12. Just because you can do something like make tech week hell and everybody kind of hate their lives, doesn’t mean you have to. If you need that time so desperately, extend your tech. Shorten your in the room rehearsal time, and extend your tech. I’ve done Shakespeare in two weeks. It can be done. Don’t have 10/12s. Find ways you can adjust your schedules to make the show work without burning out your employees. Not only will this make it a better environment for working mothers, but it’ll make it a safer and more friendly environment for everyone. This is a fascinating article that really makes you ask “why?” Why do we have such long tech hours? Why do we insist on cramming all of tech into a short time? Why do we demonize people for having a life outside of the Theater, outside of the Art. I think we’re overdue for a change.
This article does bring up the idea of women with children in the industry are at a disadvantage and though I am happy to see that is changing in some companies for now I think it will remain a greater truth. I was told multiple times that you can choose to be at the top of your field or to have a family but doing both is nearly impossible and though it seems harsh it isn’t untrue and wasn’t meant to be that way. You can have a successful career and not be at the top of your field it depends on the individual and their priorities to determine what is best. But take a look at the CMU graduate program which is so intensive that I can’t even justify getting a pet never mind taking care of a child. Someone who wanted to accomplish this with a child would have to make sacrifices for both their education and their family. There are no hard truths but it’s nice to see inclusivity in theatre extending to mothers as well.
Having a child requires a lot of time and energy to care for them, many careers are hard to upkeep when you have children. Theater is probably at the top of the list of careers that are hard to maintain with children. I think what the studios in Chicago are doing for new parents is a really good way to help the artists. The scheduled for theater is very time consuming, which means leaving your child for a long period time would rack up big bills for child care. Having the option of a safe place for your child to be near you while rehearsing in a good way for both to be comfortable. When going into the arts in general I think most people are aware how much of your life is your career, so the common thoughts of having a family, house, stable life are not really practical. I like that Chicago is breaking down those walls for people.
A someone who often wonders if I will have kids of my own one day, articles about parent artists often intrigue me. This one in particular restores a lot of my hope in the industry. The policies in place help to get rid of that perfect mom myth. That any professional is also required to be a “professional” parent in the workplace and magically prevent their kids from doing kid things, eating, yelling, crying, pooping, etc. Which is literally impossible unless the baby is just a doll and even then, toys these days can cry and poop on command. This myth often affects other professionals outside of theatre as well. In school when teachers had children, there were always a few days in the year where the neighboring school districts had a snow day and ours didn’t so the teachers living in that town had to find quick solution, many opted to bring their children to school. This was looked down upon by school administrators but the students always loved having them in class. For instance a child of a teacher once gave the whole class a 4 minute “lesson” on his video game that ended up being the extra credit question on our next test. It was very fun all around and took our minds away from the fact that we were all cold and wet from trudging to school in the snow that day.
This article touched on a topic I have thought about many times. “Will I be able to have a family if I have a career in theatre?” This question saddened me because I had always thought I couldn’t have it both ways. Even just in the university, I have seen that to be not true. Prof. Kristi Good became huge role model for me when it comes to being a mother, keeping a career in theater, and teaching. It’s important to let women know that theatre is a safe environment for them to matter what they choose to do. Like Jessica said, why do we do these harmful things to ourselves in the business that make us think having outside lives is impossible? A change is truly needed in the attitudes of having a life outside of your career in theatre so people can know that it is normal to want these things.
I’ve actually been wondering about this topic for a while- aside from teachers, who keep a slightly more normal schedule, I don’t see many women theatre professionals with children. It’s pretty easy to see why- the schedules we have to keep are very demanding and require flexibility that is hard to provide with children at home who need to be picked up from school or taken to sports practice or even just fed and changed. The nature of freelance work also involves moving around a lot, between companies and even between cities and states if necessary, and that kind of instability is hard to raise a family on. I’m glad to see this issue being addressed in this article and by the company they mention, and loved the picture of the women sitting around the table getting work done while also holding babies. Our high school director and music director both had young daughters who would often end up at rehearsals and it ended up being a lot of fun and not a distraction to have them in the room!
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