the week of august 8-12, 2022
everyone deserves a union
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the victory gardens staff is unionizing
The Victory Gardens staff announced this week that they have started the process of unionization. The LA Times’ Ashley Lee reports, “The group of 16 employees — which includes front-of-house staff, stagehands and arts administrators — filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board last week. They are represented by three IATSE locals: Stagehands Local 2, Treasurers and Ticket Sellers Local 750, and Wardrobe Local 769.”
Here is the VG staff’s full statement:
The power imbalance between board, staff, and artists is one of the pervasive problems facing the American Theater industry. The entire Victory Gardens staff (full-time and part-time) is unionizing. We aim to build a more just and equitable theater ecosystem. Now the board can no longer be silent - they must finally talk to us.
Unionization gives us the power of collective bargaining and a stronger support system than we currently have access to as individual, at-will employees. The Board has refused repeated requests for direct conversation. Unionization guarantees us a seat at the table, as well as leverage to push for worker safety measures that will benefit all employees of Victory Gardens.
We hope to build on the legacies of past leaders like Ken-Matt Martin, Roxanna Conner, and Chay Yew, with new structures that allow Victory Gardens to be a true home for the Chicago theater community. This includes: bringing on a transitional Board of Directors composed of arts industry leaders already excited to enact change, evaluating what leadership means at Victory Gardens and how we can move towards a more collective model, having a job fair to hire amazing and passionate new staff who believe in this theater’s mission, and above all, providing space for Chicago’s theater community to voice grievances, ideas, and hopes to build an institution that supports them better than we’ve been able to in the past. All of this after we all take a long paid vacation, of course.
In no other sector does a group have so much power yet so little expertise in the field. Our staff has people with decades of theater experience and Master’s degrees in theater, yet a board made up of lawyers, oil executives and real estate moguls is playing puppetry with our livelihoods as their volunteer hobby. This power imbalance is plaguing regional theater across America. While we cannot tear down the broken 501(c)3 non-profit model at this time, perhaps this is a new way to rebalance power structures in the American theater.”
America is experiencing a wave of unionization across multiple industries, from corporate behemoths to independent bookstores, art museums, and small restaurants. Kim Kelly contextualizes this power shift in her recent book Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor: “There is a vibrant, vital sense of urgency now, exacerbated by mounting crises and underpinned by historic levels of unemployment and economic inequality. Something’s got to give.”
The pandemic forced hustle-drunk Americans to reevaluate their relationship to work, and the months-long shutdown stirred numerous reckonings in the theatre industry. (Forcibly) removed from the daily grind of producing, theatre workers could finally interrogate the sustainability of an industry dependent on devaluing labor and exploiting youthful enthusiasm.
Over the last few years, marginalized theatre workers have risked their livelihoods to expose abuse and injustice, oust toxic leadership, and fight for humane working conditions. These efforts all involved collective action — from New York (A.R.T./NY) to Boston (The Huntington) to DC (Mosaic, Adventure Theatre MTC) to Chicago (Writers Theatre) to rural Virginia (ASC) to New England summer festivals (Williamstown and The O'Neill). In the wake of this widespread organizing and coalition building, more unionization is an inevitable progression.
Unlike other industries experiencing first-time union drives, theatres already have pre-existing relationships and agreements with other labor unions, including Actors’ Equity, SDC, USA, and IATSE. But these organizations don’t currently represent all administrative or creative occupations; the cross-section of marketers, fundraisers, literary managers, production, box office, and administrative staffers included in Victory Gardens’ petition is a notable development.
The Victory Gardens workers are in a unique position. The company has no artistic or executive leadership and the board refuses to communicate with the remaining sixteen staffers directly. The small staff size and situational urgency created ideal conditions for achieving solidarity. I don’t know the viability and obstacles of organizing staffs at other theatres — but that shouldn’t stop workers from exploring the possibility.
After #MeToo, the George Floyd protests, and the We See You W.A.T. demands, theatres responded with words: codes of conduct, anti-racism statements, EDI commitments. And while there has been notable action and accountability, many theatres still do not fully grasp how labor issues intersect with these social, political, and economic movements. (That’s Not A Living Wage exists for a reason.) If theatres want to live their purported values and remake themselves into equitable organizations, they need to embrace structures that protect and empower workers. And the best way for workers to advocate for themselves and each other is to build collective power.
True organizational value isn’t a measure of subscriber numbers or donor levels or real estate holdings. A theater’s greatest asset is its workers, the people who facilitate and create the art — and they’ve had enough.
in person theatre
The inaugural South Carolina New Play Festival runs August 12-14. The Greenville festival includes readings of Kate Hamill's The Scarlet Letter (directed by Shelley Butler); Kareem Fahmy's Dodi & Diana (directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt); Adam Ben-David, Christyn Budzyna, and Jessica Penzias' musical From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (directed by West Hyler); and Samantha Miller's Dragonsoul Offline (directed by Jeffrey Lo).
Saheem Ali, Michael Thurber, and Jocelyn Bioh’s world premiere musical Goddess starts performances August 14th at Berkeley Rep. Ali also directs the “rousing tale of romance, the supernatural, and the quest towards one’s truest self inspired by the myth of Marimba, the Goddess who created beautiful songs from her heartbreak.”
Darkfield’s immersive audio theatrical experiences Flight and Séance are now playing at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn. Each show takes place in total darkness inside customized 40-foot shipping containers with the audience experiencing the narrative via headphones.
digital theatre
David Greenspan’s (There’s) No Time for Comedy and Loops will be released August 16th from Playwrights Horizons’ Soundst The two audio plays are both directed by Ken Rus Schmoll.
2022-23 season updates
National Black Theatre announced its 2022-23 season. Projects include Tylie Shider’s The Gospel Women (directed by Adrienne D. Williams), and three world premieres: a.k. payne’s Amani (directed by Josiah Davis, co-pro with Rattlestick), nicHi douglas’ dance-theatre work (pray) (co-pro with Ars Nova), Diane Exavier's Bernarda’s Daughters (directed by Dominique Rider, co-pro with The New Group), and Fedna Jacquet’s Black Mother Lost Daughter.
the regional theatre game of thrones
Daniella Topol is stepping down as artistic director of Rattlestick. Topol is leaving to pursue a nursing career. She took over Rattlestick in 2016, succeeding co-founder David Van Asselt.
No That’s Not A Living Wage this week, but I do have an unhinged job posting for you from the West Side Story international tour. (It has since been deleted, but screenshots are forever.) I am begging employers to get it together; this isn’t Marie’s Crisis:
I am all for improving the professional lives and compensation for theater workers. Unionizing a workforce of a company when most of the working capital does not come from what the theater sells, but from grants and foundations, isn't feasible. A corporation, a small bookstore even a restaurant has a self-producing and sustaining income stream, which we don't. And we have no reliable mandatory state funding like in Germany or Great Britain. There should be industry minimums that a board should have to agree to before agreeing to help support a theater. Living Wage should be part of the Mission/Vision of every theater, not an aspirational after thought, and should be posted with the rest of their Mission/Vision statement. If we can't pay a living wage, then there is something wrong with that theater's strategic plan; and if the theater can't afford that minimum, then it should not be included in a listing of professional theaters.