: One low point for Julie Saltzman Kellner came when she was in labor with her daughter but still answering work emails.
“That is to some degree my own damn fault,” she recalled ruefully. “Like, put the phone away!”
Tuesday, November 09, 2021
Theater workers aren’t just changing jobs during the pandemic. They’re leaving the field
Datebook
: One low point for Julie Saltzman Kellner came when she was in labor with her daughter but still answering work emails.
“That is to some degree my own damn fault,” she recalled ruefully. “Like, put the phone away!”
: One low point for Julie Saltzman Kellner came when she was in labor with her daughter but still answering work emails.
“That is to some degree my own damn fault,” she recalled ruefully. “Like, put the phone away!”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Honestly, is any of this surprising? My decision to go to grad school at this time was influenced largely by the fact that I'm banking on a ton of people specifically deciding to leave the industry due to the pandemic because I believe there will be jobs available by the time May of 2024 rolls around.
I have no sympathy for the fact that we can't find anyone to work overhire currently. This industry doesn't care about it's employees and hasn't essentially since it's inception as a modern institution. What rights do we have to think it unfortunate that nobody wants to work when we don't make the job sound appealing at all. Long hours for not enough pay and what essentially amounts to guilt tripping employees into never taking off. Any one of the myriad of skills that a theatre technician or TD possesses can be honed just a little further and a stable career can be found elsewhere so I really am not surprised at the contents of this article.
Many individuals are leaving theatre and the drama industry for other jobs. The pandemic has given many people the opportunity to step back and take a closer look at their working conditions, and to reconsider them. Many people are taking their skill set and applying it to other fields where they can be used, with better hours and better pay. Love of theater alone is not enough to sustain many people when they aren’t getting to spend any time with their families or actually earning a living wage. It’s a larger issue within the theatre industry as a whole that people, often not performers, are expected to work long hours for little. This strategy is proving to be untenable. Large changes will need to be made in order to make it worthwhile to work in theatre. Currently, it doesn’t seem like a job that is desirable to very many people.
We as theatre makers end up getting trained in a lot of different skillsets, especially physical ones if you’re working backstage in props, or even costumes or scenery. The elements of collaboration, research and design are useful to have and the vast intersections with other fields in theatre that draw a lot of people in for niche roles give a good amount of flexibility to get out of it when the industry’s standard is not paying or respecting the time and health of their employees. They have the skills for work elsewhere and why should you stay or work in a place that disrespects you in that way? Theatre in highschool and here can appear to be a cult, we spend a ton of time working and in our own space so we get isolated from the rest of the world, that is not something that I want to continue when I begin to work professionally. Anything I love can become a burden if that is all I do with no time outside of it.
While reading this article, I immediately related with this idea that even if you have sick days, you can’t use them unless you want the entire production to stall. Although in high school there are no sick days for students, the thought I would ever miss a rehearsal caused major panic in my mind because there was not contingency plan for someone with my skills and knowledge to stand in for me. On a professional scale, this is even more prominent because you are dealing with a lot more money and a lot of professionals’ valuable time, possibly away from other sources of income or family. Another issue that was mentioned is the ratio of hours worked to money earned. I find this concept especially interesting because the hours worked in this industry could match that to so many other professions who make a lot more money and do a lot less in the time they are working. Therefore, I can see why, especially after a pandemic where people were able to see what life was like outside the rehearsal room, people are leaving this industry. As someone who is studying to be in this industry, it is hard to read articles like this one and not think about what I will be experiencing 10 years from now, but I also know that I can be someone who changes this cycle.
Articles like this are really starting to make me mad. The fact that anyone is surprised that people chose to leave the live event industry during the pandemic is borderline laughable. Of course they are leaving the industry, what did the industry do for them when we had to shut the house doors? Not a whole lot. This is an industry that solely survives off of peoples passion for the art and covid really showed the world that passion does not pay the bills or put food on the table. Personally, leaving the industry is a weird concept because I never really was in the industry in the first place. Between the burnout and the realization that I would be living right around the poverty line due to embarrassingly low salaries and crippling student loan debt really puts passion to the side and brings survival to the front. I hope this mass exodus really enlightens some artists and forces the hands signing the checks that people have a right to take care of themselves and their families over their jobs.
Post a Comment