Thursday, January 06, 2022
Human Sustainability in Theatre
Technicians for Change: Sustainability is a broad term that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Theatre is a visual, material artform, so it’s easy to visualize and jump to the physicality of a theatre when talking about sustainability. It’s much harder to talk about ourselves and what is sustainable. It’s very personal to talk about what is sustaining to us each as individuals and artists.
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2 comments:
really enjoyed reading this article because I feel like this is an issue we don’t often discuss. Of course, Post-Pandemic the topic has been brought to the table more often. But we rarely acknowledge theatre activists’ efforts to preserve physical materials, and their lack of empathy for their most valuable resource, human connection. It seemed like a trend in theatre a few years ago to begin looking at cutting down paper or saving lumber, however, as the article says all of this is worthless if you’re still exploiting people. A lot of times it seems like people do things in the industry for the appearance. At the root of it we must adopt new practices to treat each other better and establish a new method of working because sustainability starts with creating longevity for the humans working in the industry. I agree with the article in the sentiment that it is important to be environmentally friendly, but we must work harder to create an industry that supports the people at the heart of it.
Something you hear a lot is that a career in technical theater has a shelf life. This is not only true of physical labor jobs, in which lifting and building can take physical tolls, but also for any job in this industry. Long hours and personal sacrifices are seen as necessary and integral to creative roles. A person who puts reasonable boundaries on their effort at work is dismissed as dispassionate, lazy, or not a team player. For the most part, this works, because people who do theater do it out of a strong love and passion from which, most of the time, they are willing to sacrifice much to be a part of a production. However, as new generations begin to have respect for their time and labor, a question is raised of if this system is sustainable. We’ve already seen this in talks of strikes, increased attention to equity on set, and articles like this one. In the next few years, it’ll be interesting to see if theatre can remain as life-consuming as it is now, or if concessions will have to be made to meet the demands of modern workers.
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