Technicians for Change: Kinda.
The reality is that there are theater people playing vital roles in both mass testing and the vaccine rollout. The other reality is that the task of acquiring, transporting, scheduling, and distributing the vaccine is larger than even the most complex tour we’ve undertaken.
6 comments:
I have seen a lot of stuff on various social media platforms joking about how we should just let stage managers run the vaccine rollout, but reading this article there is some real legitimacy to that joke. It makes complete sense that theater people, particularly stage and production managers would be well equipped to be dealing with the cumbersome vaccine rollout. I thought it was very interesting how the article referenced the many soft skills that many theater managers have but are challenging to define. It is so true that a lot of these skills are not exclusive to just theater but really any type of logistics or event management. It was unfortunate to read however that one manager who had been working in vaccine rollout decided to stop because they were being overworked and undervalued. I completely understand their reasoning, but it is challenging to see that these extremely valuable and necessary workers are being underappreciated.
My friends and I always joke that theater people should organize the distribution of vaccines. I think that theater people (on more of the managers side) have a unique set of skills that make them the perfect candidates to organize complicated events like vaccine distribution. So much scheduling must go into the distribution of vaccines, both for the initial first doss and then the second one for Pfizer and Moderna and as someone who has been helping people book appointments, it is so difficult to do so. I think that the overall distribution of vaccines has been terribly run, leaving so many people behind. I don't think that theater people will be able to fix all this however I think that they would be able to lend their unique skill set to improve it. Especially as currently the majority of theater people are unemployed and needing jobs it could be the perfect solution.
As the other comments have said the jokes around this headline have been many and honestly rather funny. But it is very interesting to see just how the skills do transfer from one job to another. The skills that people in the management side of theatre learn throughout their education, and maybe more importantly their experience, have always been very transferable to many different jobs so I guess that this new transfer, while obviously not expected, was not that far of a stretch. It was also very fascinating to read a little bit about just what all does go into setting up and running a permanent vaccination location or a pop up one. I knew that it was a ton of work and but the specifics of it are very interesting. Seeing that some theatre people have been able to stay employed and working their skills during the pandemic instills me with some confidence for the post pandemic productions. That maybe these super managers will be able to take some of the new skills they have learned in managing an even bigger disaster than a tech or show week and make their theatre jobs that much more efficient.
I was just reading an article in the Baltimore Sun about the Baltimore County vaccination clinic at the Maryland State Fairgrounds being run by a production manager for Twisted Sister. Complex operations that involve a lot of problem solving and moving parts are exactly what (some) theater people are interested in. The skills that one acquires working in theater can be applied to many different aspects of life and that’s certainly a contributing factor for CMU graduates who don’t work in the entertainment industry. I found the section about the one individual quitting because he was being abused and how he felt that is a recurring issue is an interesting dilemma, one we all understand. On the one hand, those tasks need to be done, but on the other hand, sometimes our industry (and school) ask too much of us which leads directly to burnout even sometimes at a collegiate level. Hopefully that guy can go get a job where he isn’t being abused for his work ethic and sense of purpose.
I think this is a funny take. I’ve seen jokes around on Twitter that have been shared with me and my friends in my high school theatre department that if a Stage Manager was in charge of the vaccine rollout that we’d be out of the pandemic months ago. Which while hilarious, actually carries a lot of truth in it. My experience as a stage manager, and many of the stage managers I know have such a type A personality and are all about getting shit done. Maybe if we had that type of energy and drive in our government from the start of his pandemic a year ago that we’d be in a different place now. Or maybe my opinion is skewed as a (reluctant) theatre person myself.
For weeks now, I have been seeing the occasional image or video that declares production staff should be the ones running the vaccine distribution. What was initially a funny joke quickly became a no-brainer to me. This article is proof of just that – those posts should not have been made fun of. As theatre technicians in a pandemic, there is nothing else for us to do! Our management skills, while intended for theatre and production, are applicable elsewhere. We are more than used to working on incredibly complex problems quickly and efficiently, and simply getting things done. Tie this into the fact that we are currently out of work, and desperate to start working in theatre and production again – you have an unstoppable force that is theatre managers. The sooner we can coordinate the distribution of the vaccine, the sooner we can begin to open up the world. This article is nothing but proof that we as theatre practitioners are versatile, flexible workers who can quickly adapt to the situations we may find ourselves in. After more than a year of hell that is COVID, there is finally a speck of light at the end of this godforsaken tunnel, and I am very much looking forward for COVID to be over.
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