bills, bills, bills #12

A week in the life and wallet of an MFA candidate in dramaturgy

Bills, Bills, Bills is a monthly series of anonymous money diaries from theatre workers curated and edited by Jenna Clark Embrey. The full archive is available here.

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editor’s note

There’s no way around it — this month’s diary gave me major flashbacks to my own time pursuing an MFA in Dramaturgy. (My program is now defunct, but in brief: I graduated with six figures of student loan debt, a pretty good education, trauma from a messy administration, and two of my best friends in the entire world.) The columnist featured here is going about their graduate education in the smartest way possible: they have a full tuition waiver. Even with that tuition waiver, their income from teaching barely covers their expenses and requires a keen level of budgeting (and a reliance on packing a full day of meals/snacks to take along for an intense day of meetings and classes). What really resonated with me in this diary was the relentless schedule. Graduate work in theater can often feel a little bit like being Alice in Wonderland: you’re told that your hours and schedule are something akin to what you’ll face in “the real world,” although that’s not often the case. Like this month’s contributor, I had to occasionally perform in graduate school pieces under the guise of “collaboration,” but I am happy to report that I’ve never been asked to act after I received my degree. (The world is better off for it.) I’ve anonymized the location of this contributor even more than usual, due to the dwindling numbers of MFA Dramaturgy programs, but the real joy of this month’s column comes from the excellent reading/watching list. If you’ve ever wanted to read about RuPaul’s Drag Race and Ursula LeGuin in the same sentence, this month’s column is for you. 

money diary

Job: I’m a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Dramaturgy

Location: A small town in a state with a high cost of living

Age: Late twenties

Yearly Income: $23,373. This is after taxes, paid bi-weekly over a nine-month schedule. A normal paycheck is around $1,139, but with some variation when tuition fees are deducted. My income comes from teaching one course per semester, which also gives me a full tuition waiver. I also do some script reading on the side for additional income, but that’s pretty sparse. 

Debt: 

• Student Loans: $36,997.08 ($20,000 of which will hopefully be forgiven through Biden’s recent debt relief plan). These are undergrad loans, some of which I have already paid off myself.

• Credit Card: $2,751.93. I chose not to work over my two summers in grad school so far because I got so burnt out during school and ended up with a lot of (unpaid) school-related tasks and projects to work on over the summer. I ended up living off of my savings and putting expenses on my credit card, which I’ll chip away at over the course of this year.

Savings: $5,151.92. I utilized some of my savings for living expenses during my first two years of graduate school.

Checking: $1,095.35

Monthly Bills:

• Rent: $600. I split a kind of awful 2-bedroom apartment with one roommate.

• Utilities: approximately $25 when I’m splitting it with someone else 

  • Until late August I was living alone and paid the full bill myself, which tends to be around $50 depending on the season. (It’s higher in winter when we have the heat on, obviously.)

• Internet: $37.43 for my half

• Tuition Fees + Health Insurance Premium: $840.62, deducted from my paycheck. (This is getting cut in half as of our new union contract this year.)

• Union Dues: 1.79% of the taxable income from my university, which is maybe $5/paycheck. I’m very thankful our graduate students are unionized!

• Public Transit: $0 (subsidized by my university)

• Spotify/Hulu (I have the combined subscription): $12.99

• Paramount Plus and Prime Video: $0 (I use a friend’s passwords)

• Twitch Subscription: $4.99

• Patreon Subscriptions: $19.86. I support a podcast I listen to regularly, a writer, a game designer, and a monthly trans zine club

• Google Drive storage: $1.99

Total Monthly Bills: $1,547.88

Annual Expenses:

• Gym Membership: $220, reimbursed by my health insurance

• Dropout Subscription: $50

• Strong Pro: $60

• NordVPN: $105.19

• LMDA subscription: $40

• New Play Exchange subscription: $12.99

• Website Subscription/Domain Renewal: $216.24

Total Annual Expenses: $704.42

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Tuesday

I get up at 6 and do my morning routine: coffee, making my bed, stretching/doing mobility work, a tarot card pull and some journaling, and German or Spanish on Duolingo. I take the 7:30 bus to go to the gym. I do some squats and get a long stretch in, then head home to shower and throw a load of laundry in before I teach in the afternoon ($3.25). I’m starting to feel behind when it comes to homework, so I try to speedread through the reading I have due for my pedagogy class while I wait for my laundry to dry and for maintenance to fix the leak in my apartment’s shower. Around 12:15, I catch the bus and head to campus to teach my class, which is a survey class of plays by playwrights of color. We discuss some short plays by Suzan-Lori Parks; my students take a little bit to warm up to group discussion but we get there eventually and I’m super proud of them! 

Immediately afterward, I have a meeting with the faculty member who is advising my teaching this semester and we have a good check-in about pedagogy and various other projects we’re each working on. I stop by a different building to meet with a philosophy student who just joined the feminist pedagogy class I’m taking and wanted to catch up on what we talked about in the first session. It’s really nice to talk to someone else in WGSS (the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department) who works in the humanities, since our class has a lot of social science students in it. Then I head to the dining hall and get some chicken tenders to eat in my office while I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race because I’m feeling tired and that’s what I’m craving ($12). I also read an Italo Calvino essay for my playwriting class tomorrow and chip away at some more reading for my pedagogy class, feeling a little behind about both. At 5:45 I head downstairs to the theater to watch a second night of auditions for the show I’m working on this year and stick around after to talk through callback plans with the director. I get home around 11 and go to bed almost immediately, after reading a couple chapters of Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, since I try really hard to do some reading for fun throughout the week. 

Total Spending: $15.75

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Wednesday

I decided last night that I wasn’t going to go to the gym this morning, so I sleep until 6:30 and do my usual routine, then squeeze in the rest of the reading for my pedagogy class before catching the bus to go to directing studio, which I have back-to-back with a playwriting seminar. All throughout class, I’m fielding emails about a COVID exposure in our audition/callback process. This makes it extremely difficult to focus on writing exercises, but in these unprecedented times, we must press on. I head home, take a rapid test, heat up the rest of some leftover pizza from the weekend, and write the paper I have due tomorrow for my pedagogy class in one frantic burst. Then it’s back to campus yet again for our first night of callbacks, which go until about 10pm. The director and I stay until about 10:30 to discuss the folks we saw, then I head home, read another chapter of The Lathe of Heaven, and fall asleep.

Total Spending: $0

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Thursday

I am so tired. I get up and stumble through my morning routine, make some breakfast, and adjust the slides and my lesson plan for my class later. I catch the bus at 9:15 to get to campus in time for my 10am pedagogy class. Afterwards, I speedwalk across campus to get to the building I teach in and lead a class on different play analysis techniques. This results in, among other things, several mood boards filled with memes. I rush back to the arts building for a production meeting, check in with my advisor about the show, and go upstairs for a meeting with our department’s operations manager to ask some logistical questions about funding and facilities for my thesis project in the spring. I leave with many more items on my to-do-list than I had before, which does not feel great! It also does not feel great to have had back-to-back classes/meetings from 10am until about 4:30pm.

I go to the dining hall and get a burrito, then walk back to my office to eat it while I watch an episode of Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey and Flowers, a D&D show about Regency-style archfey ($12). To kill the time before our second night of callbacks, I scan a bunch of research that I need for my first rehearsal presentation next week and catch up on my podcasts. Our callbacks run until late and we end up sticking around the theater until 11:30 or so finalizing the cast list, although I am heartened by how good my working relationship with the director is turning out to be. I take the bus home once that’s settled and crash almost immediately. I am completely and utterly drained. 

Total Spending: $12

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Friday

I wake up feeling better than I did last night and meander through my tarot pull and morning coffee, in addition to doing some general life admin including paying my credit card bill. I make an $800 payment, since I got my first paycheck of the semester today. I opted not to work aside from a few small freelance gigs over the summer because there was an expectation that I come into the semester having prepared my course syllabus and done a ton of research for my thesis and the show I’m working on this fall, and I struggled to strike a balance of getting all that (unpaid…) work done with having time for taking a real break between semesters. So I ended up living mostly off of my savings and put a lot of stuff on my credit card, meaning now my first few paychecks will partially go towards chipping away at my balance again. My internet payment also goes through and I see that for some mysterious reason the monthly rate has increased (noted in above expenses). I briefly consider calling them but then simply cannot fathom talking to customer service on the phone right now, so I make a mental note to do it later (although there is a very real possibility that I just won’t). 

Then, I decide to get my grocery trip out of the way. It takes me about two hours (and two buses each way) to get to Trader Joe’s, which I shop at because the things they sell are sized well for one person to consume before it goes bad and it strikes the best balance of least expensive, most convenient, and accessible by public transit. Stocking up on groceries and little treats for the difficult and hectic days ahead costs $202.08, including twenty bucks in cash to refill my laundry card. (There’s no branch of the bank I use nearby and I am too lazy to switch banks when I only plan on living here for a few years, so I try to remember to get cash back instead of dealing with ATM fees). My mom calls me shortly after I get home and we chat and catch up for an hour while I clean my apartment a bit, swap out towels and dish towels, and put a load of laundry in ($3.25). 

I take a break to make a late breakfast (eggs, roasted potatoes, toast) and try the new brown sugar oat milk creamer from Trader Joe’s (it’s fun but I could make this better myself at home) in some decaf coffee, and start watching the previous day’s Critical Role, which is absolutely devastating. Then, I hop on a Zoom call with the Theater Department’s PR person, the poster designer, and the director for my show to check in about poster design and making a study guide for the student matinee (a responsibility I am only just now learning about). Afterwards I rest for a bit before making dinner the way I do every two weeks after I grocery shop — I cook two packages of chicken and save most of it to top salads for the next week or so, then eat the rest with whatever veggies I have available that I need to use up. This is the closest I get to formal meal prep, which is unfortunately the only way I can make sure I eat decently well with my busy schedule. I spend the rest of the night relaxing and go to bed early.

Total Spending: $1,005.33

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Saturday

I sleep two more hours than I had initially planned but it seems clear that my body needs it, so I get up around 7:30 and meander through my morning routine, a shower, and making breakfast (same as yesterday). Then, I finish the most recent episode of A Court of Fey and Flowers and work on getting dramaturgy materials ready for actors at our first rehearsal on Monday, since the cast list went out yesterday! I wrap up around 12:30 and pack some snacks and sunscreen for an outdoor performance piece I’m participating in today. I take the bus there, and suddenly remember that there’s a football game today as the bus fills with super drunk undergrads, much to my chagrin. 

The performance piece goes really well and the weather is beautiful! I say hi to some friends and a favorite student of mine who graduated last year, then catch the bus home and decompress for a while (in addition to eating the snacks I packed but then neglected by accident). I aspire to get more prep done for my dramaturgy presentation on Monday but end up doing nothing but finishing season 10 of Drag Race and going to bed early. 

Total Spending: $0

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Sunday

I sleep until about 7:30 and do my usual morning stuff, capped off by making biscuits for breakfast with leftovers that I can eat throughout the week. I watch some more RuPaul’s Drag Race (hopping back to All Stars 3), then listen to last week’s episode of The Adventure Zone while I finish my dramaturgy presentation for tomorrow and do a little more research and prep. At 1, I log onto a design meeting over Zoom for my show. It goes a little over time and I start to lose focus toward the end, but oh well. I mess around on the computer for a while after and then make a salad with kale, chicken, apples, pecans, and cheddar cheese as a late lunch/early dinner. I spend a few hours watching more Drag Race and zoning out in front of my computer, then finish the book of letters I started reading earlier as research for my show. I brush my teeth and wash my face, pack my gym bag and backpack for tomorrow, then read another chapter of The Lathe of Heaven and watch a little bit of TikTok before falling asleep (a habit I am trying and failing to break).

Total Spending: $0

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Monday

I snooze my alarm until 5:30, make coffee and a couple of mini bagels with cream cheese, and do my morning routine with a couple life admin tasks sprinkled in, including downloading the reading I have to do for Thursday. I head out the door around 7:15 and go to the gym. Today was in theory my day to do deadlifts, but I end up focusing on other things because the deadlift platforms are super busy the whole time I’m there. After I shower in the locker room, I run to the library to print some stuff for rehearsal later (it costs about $1.50 total, deducted from a balance on my student ID left over from printing something two semesters ago). Then, I drop some stuff off in my office and head to the copy room to finish preparing an activity for my presentation later and make copies of a glossary for the cast and designers to reference during our read-through. I finish just in time to haul ass upstairs for my directing class. 

We get out a little early so I head over to the campus pharmacy to pick up a prescription, which they somehow have not yet filled despite me putting in a request a full week ago, so I wait a few minutes for them to fill it ($10), and even manage to make it back to my office just in time for my office hours. My brain is too full to do much right now, so I cross a couple of easy email-related tasks off my to-do list, catch up on notifications, and zone out with a podcast and a phone game until it’s time to go home. At home, I make a cheese plate and continue zoning out, then end up making a salad (same as yesterday’s) right after I finish it because I don’t want to be hungry at rehearsal and feel like I should eat at least one vegetable today. 

I leave home a little early and stop at CVS on the way to rehearsal to pick up an energy drink and also finally replace my very broken umbrella because I am tired of suffering through bad weather and it is currently thunderstorming. I go to self checkout because I am for some reason very self-conscious about buying an umbrella while it’s raining ($29.22). Upon arriving on campus, I gather all the things I need for rehearsal, down a Red Bull, and head down to the theater to help set up tables and chairs. We have an incredible first rehearsal and my presentation goes really well! I am, however, exhausted afterwards, but when I get home I am filled with panic about getting all of my work done in time for class on Wednesday and Thursday, so I spend forty-five minutes or so writing a short play for my playwriting class before going to sleep. I am awoken around 2am by mysterious, loud, and prolonged thumping from the apartment below mine (I think), like they’re banging something against the ceiling? It is hard to tell and I choose not to worry about it and fall back asleep.

Total Spending: $40.72

Total Spending for the Week: $1,073