Tuesday, November 17, 2020
The Necessity of Pivoting
HowlRound Theatre Commons: As a soon-to-be graduate with an MFA in costume design, I thought I would be riding high this year—hustling and making moves to launch myself into a decades-long lucrative career in design. Lofty, yes, but that’s truly how I felt things were going to go—I had been kicking butt. It all came to a screeching halt in the short span of four days in the middle of March. All at once my prospects were cancelled. My summer plans were gone, and my upcoming production was eliminated the same day I was let go from my assistant job at a regional theatre. I found myself at a bar on a Friday evening trying not to cry while Celine Dion blasted over the speakers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I thought that this essay was kind of all over the place but had a couple interesting points that they made. When it comes to pivoting, I think its much easier said than done. Lately, I've been feeling behind the curb when it comes to this whole zoom theater thing. I don't watch zoom theater on my free time, I don't find the medium entertaining or even necessary, and my loyalty to this industry is nearly completely faded away. The fact of the matter is, the medium, structure, and timeline that typical theater shows run on is why I do this. Without those things, there isn't much to it. I appreciate articles that glorify zoom theater and encourage people to repurpose their time and efforts during this time, but no thank you not for me. It's simply not the medium that I'm in college to learn and I won't act like this is where the industry is headed or that thee is a charm of any sort in these digital productions.
For most of the pandemic, I have been thinking about pivoting when I graduate and trying to find work in another industry. I was afraid that there would not be any work for me once I graduate, but now, I am more optimistic. It seems like more theaters have managed to keep some kind of playmaking happening, and while most of our industry is still without work, it is slowly coming back. Especially in film and television, which I had not considered much before, but now I am seeing that as a real possibility for my career path. There are real possibilities out there right now, even if they are hard to see and hard to find. I am more hopeful now than I was six months ago, but I am still taking that with a pinch of pessimism. It is still impossible to know what the state of the world will be like in May when I graduate, but hopefully it is better than it is today. And who knows, maybe this vaccine will come around and save everything in March. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I started off reading this article feeling a little bit anxious. Personally, I do not think I could have handled dedicating all of my time to researching the economic collapse of my own industry. Like, that must be so depressing, although some people must find it comforting to know exactly what is going on. At first I found it to be a bit insensitive that the author was surprised they did not receive many responses to their survey, so I am glad they acknowledged the reason why later in the essay. It is so easy to overlook the big picture when you are focused in on your part in it sometimes. Something I took away from this essay was that the solutions that many companies have found to stay creating have been so out-of-the-box, and there are clearly a lot of determined individuals working to make sure they stay afloat.
Pivoting is not as easy as it sounds, especially when an entire industry is pivoting the way they do their thing or individuals are pivoting their career path to a completely different industry. I think that is particularly challenging for theatre. There is not anything quite like theatre. The pace, the people, the process, and the outcome are so unique. The process does not feel the same as anything else. There is a whole lot of anxiety surrounding how the pandemic is risking everyone’s financial safety and emotional security. One of the things that give me a bit of hope is the tenacity of theatrical professionals. They are so focused on finding the fix. They assess the problem and move along to finding a solution that fits into the constraints given. I really hope that we get through this soon. It has been so upsetting to hear about the closures of long running shows and theatres.
Even though I entered this year as a freshman, the unique challenges that this pandemic has presented to the theatre industry made me seriously consider abandoning my current plans and goals entirely and simply settling for whatever I could do for a career. I still sometimes have doubts when reading the news, but I think this article really showed me with great clarity the nature of the industry that I want to go into. The challenge of continuing forward under limitations and restrictions, as well as the realization that theatre is not nearly as diverse, inclusive, and equitable as our supposed aspirations would suggest, has made the industry as a whole rise up and find new and creative solutions. Pushing onward despite all the pessimism and struggle is a quality that seems uniquely theatre, at least in what I have experienced these past few months. Instead of just banking on a vaccine or sticking with the old and outdated ways of theatre past, companies and theatre professionals have turned their tenacity, hope, and skill towards making truly positive changes, and it is an industry that I have renewed faith in and hope to one day be a part of.
Post a Comment