the week of august 10-14, 2020
the hill I will die on: your workplace is not your family
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this week in institutional fuckery: berkeley rep and equity
KQED reported this week that actors in Berkeley Rep’s canceled production of Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls are still advocating for full compensation, months after rehearsals were suspended.
I will always remember the slow drip of doom and information in those first days of the pandemic, watching theaters struggle to figure out what to do with rehearsing and running productions as lockdowns loomed, but this is really a case study in poor communication and union failures.
The trouble started when the still-in-tech cast of School Girls was notified that Berkeley Rep would be filming the production for ticket holders:
[Santoya] Fields, the union deputy for the cast, asked for clarification on the actors’ compensation. [Berkeley Rep managing director Susie] Medak verbally promised everyone in the room two weeks’ pay. Fields recalls that when she then asked whether those two weeks constituted extra pay beyond the four weeks specified by their Actors’ Equity-negotiated contracts, her question was dismissed.
“We only have to pay you for three days,” she remembers Medak saying, invoking the Actors’ Equity “Act of God” clause. But as Fields and [actor Omozé] Idehenre contend, force majeure was rejected in other shows that closed around the country. Nonetheless, the cast was given just 45 minutes to prepare themselves for their first, and only, full performance, which would be filmed and then broadcast, in a hastily-negotiated arrangement between Berkeley Rep, A.C.T., and Actors’ Equity.
And then the contracts got real messy:
To add to Fields’ and Idehenre’s unease, they received an email two days later from Berkeley Rep that included a “rider” to their original contracts. This rider guaranteed payment through April 5. But the contract they had signed in February specified a four-week notice for termination, meaning they were eligible for four weeks’ worth of regular pay at termination. As they’d already been paid their contracted salary through March 22, being paid additionally through April 5 fell short of those four weeks.
Included with the new rider was a copy of an agreement between Berkeley Rep and Actors’ Equity, which specified that the theater would be allowed to record and broadcast a scheduled performance of School Girls, as well as the already-closed Culture Clash (Still) in America. The agreement itself seemed to have violated the previous contract in multiple ways—in the time of notice given to the actors before the recording, in the compensation due for the recording being made, and the fact that the show recorded was not a scheduled performance, but rather a previously unscheduled run-through of a show still in rehearsal.
Meanwhile, the actors have continued to investigate, despite the threat of backlash:
For Fields and Idehenre, questions lingered around what compensation they were owed, and they reached out to Actors’ Equity for answers. It’s since become clear to them that not only did Berkeley Rep fail to adhere to the terms of their original contracts, but that Actors’ Equity failed in their mandate to enforce them…
Beyond continuing to press the union for a more thorough examination of their experiences and contracts with Berkeley Rep, Fields and Idehenre want Actors’ Equity to provide a public statement of accountability and “very clear” guidance for moving forward in a pandemic-affected arena.
Equity is in “active conversations” with the actors and Berkeley Rep and a resolution is still pending.
anti-racism announcements
St. Paul’s The Penumbra Theatre will evolve into the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. The organizational shift has been in development since 2015, and will build on Penumbra’s legacy of nurturing Black artists and promoting racial equality with new artistic offerings, equity training services, a wellness center, and expanded staff to support its new areas of focus.
A coalition of BIPOC artists who live or have worked in Milwaukee’s theater community and the Wisconsin theater community at large released a letter to artistic leaders and funders, modeled after We See You W.A.T., advocating for systemic change to better serve BIPOC artists and all Black residents of Milwaukee, who makes up 38% of the total population.
reopening watch: 2021 season updates
The National Theatre in London is scheduled to reopen in October with a socially distanced production of a new monologue play by Roy Williams and Clive Dyer, Death of England: Delroy. The play is a sequel to their previous hit Death of England and the news comes the day after the UK eased reopening rules around indoor performances.
The Alley Theatre has updated their previously announced 2020-21 season plans. The season will now begin in November, with Doris Baizley’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, followed by Liz Duffy Adams’ Born with Teeth, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and the world premiere of Vichet Chum’s High School Play: A Nostalgia Fest. The entire slate will be presented using one flexible set that can be adapted to each show.
City Theatre has also updated their previously announced 2020-21 season plans. The season will open in September with a live drive-in event at Hazelwood Green, featuring artists curated by eight different arts organizations, followed by Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein, which will be performed live on stage while projected on an adjacent screen in a parking lot, and a world premiere holiday musical Claws Out, an interactive holiday production created specifically for the digital stage.
La MaMa announced their 2020-21 season, which will “explore the creation, performance, and viewing of new work in a pandemic.” The season includes Vital Sign, a collaboration between La MaMa, CultureHub, and Seoul Institute of the Arts; the world premiere of artist resident Yoshiko Chuma’s LOVE STORY: School of Hard Knocks; Days and Nights Festival, a festival designed by Philip Glass to “nurture the future of the arts while exploring developments in the arts throughout history”; and Bobbi Jene Smith’s Revisiting Lost Mountain.
Houston’s Catastrophic Theatre announced their 2020-21 season, which will “experiment with a variety of new media and include a production that will bring theatre to the lawns of Houston residents.”
the (everyone is losing their) jobs report
The John Gore Organization, the production company behind Dear Evan Hansen and The Band’s Visit, and the owners of Broadway.com and The Broadway Channel, has permanently laid off over 100 previously furloughed employees.
Milwaukee Rep has implemented layoffs, furloughs and pay reductions, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. Specifics numbers or positions were not announced.
Geva Theatre Center laid off “a handful” of employees, but “declined to say how many.”
I don’t understand the deliberate vagueness in the Geva response. Show me a theatre company — one not affiliated with a university — that isn’t furloughing or laying off their staffs right now. It’s an agonizing but unfortunately common situation. I think it’s important for the public to know the human cost of the government’s inaction, and I personally find it illuminating to know which positions are considered expendable in a crisis, because it’s different for every organization.
In thinking about institutional messaging around layoffs, I was reminded of my longtime skepticism of theatres who use the word “family” to describe their staffs. It’s a whole color guard of red flags for me. I have only two bits of universally useful career advice: 1) HR is not your friend and 2) Your workplace is not your family.
This language is designed to manipulate and exploit employees, especially ones that are younger, marginalized, and underpaid. It can sugarcoat organizational toxicity and dysfunction, or serve as a roadblock to career advancement: think of how many theatres advertise themselves as close-knit families, yet dismiss women who come forward about sexual harassment or abuse, silence BIPOC employees who call out racist and discriminatory behavior, or condition workers not to ask for raises or time off. (Invoking the language of family is especially egregious for an industry that has historically failed to accommodate working parents and other caretakers.) Theater work traffics in hazy boundaries between personal and professional lives, and institutions expect unsustainable levels of commitment and loyalty that they won’t necessarily return during a crisis.
This is why I find it especially upsetting when this language is used in layoff announcements — and it’s been recently trotted out on more than one occasion. These furloughed and laid off employees aren’t unionized, they can’t negotiate severance packages, and most don’t make the kind of salaries that would’ve allowed them to build robust emergency funds. They’re losing their healthcare during a global pandemic. Calling them family doesn’t cushion that blow. It’s not callous to be honest about the nature of the relationship: they’re not your family members; they’re your employees. Theatres aren’t families; they’re businesses.
This all sounds rather cold and matter-of-fact (blame my Nordic pragmatism), and I certainly don’t mean to imply that theatres don’t need to treat employees with empathy and respect, or to dismiss the genial, supportive relationships and legitimate friendships that can develop between co-workers. But it’s important to remember context and power dynamics, and to develop healthy boundaries with your employer.
During my post-layoff exit interview at Studio Theatre, I commented that people frequently referenced my “loyalty” to the company. I loved my job, but I wanted to dispel this particular myth because I actually wasn’t loyal to the institution. I was loyal to specific people within that company who were mutually invested in me as a person, colleague, and artist. I stayed for nine years because I had a tremendous manager who was committed to my personal and professional growth, and because I cared deeply about the artists, staffers, and apprentices that I worked with. It was the relentless humanity of others, not a blind faith in the organization, that fueled my long tenure. On the other side of the pandemic, I hope theatres can cultivate humane workplaces that allow space for collegiality, collaboration, and accountability without the manipulative framework of family.
things I read & found compelling this week
Soraya Nadia McDonald on the systemic issues and forces that prevent Black creatives from being produced on Broadway, and what it will take to change the predominantly white status quo
Micha Frazer-Carroll on the danger of colorblind casting, and the growing advocacy for color-conscious casting practices
That’s all for this week. I’m dog-sitting again while my friends are at the hospital welcoming a baby (!), so please meet Sawyer, who was too busy guarding the front door from his mortal enemy (the mailman) to offer any editorial insights. (Thank you to Rebecca Adelsheim for picking up his slack.)
