A Sign of Privilege

I used to be the Harman Electrician at Shakespeare Theatre’s dope digs across from the Verizon Center, where this is located. I used to see this sign every day. Every time I see it, I experience a lurching sense of vertigo. I am made dizzy by several swirling layers of incongruity flowing beneath those stock still letters in the tastefully lit corner of the theatre. I still freelance for them as I continue to figure out exactly how to make the transition from being a technical person to a creative person, so I still see it a lot. I mean, I personally have made that transition to being a creative person. I just don’t regularly get anyone to give me money in exchange for my creativity. Yet. In other words, I am an aspiring young artist.

In the world of theatre, I am an outsider. Oh, I’ve worked for major regional theatres whose operating budgets are in the tens of millions of dollars and done good work for Tony award winning designers and people who are just as talented but don’t happen to work on Broadway. But my view of the stage usually looks like this:

This is not where people who hire designers and assistants look for designers and assistants, though it is where designers and assistants look for the tradespeople they trust to realize their ideas.

My view of the stage has never looked like this. I didn’t get a theatre degree, so I didn’t have an opportunity to get those first couple of directing or design credits where the system is awash in ways to do that. Working with a great projection designer on a world premiere at a historic theatre doesn’t signal creativity as strongly as putting the name of that famous show you directed in school on your resume, even it was put on in a basement, nobody saw it, and it was terrible. My biography is not legible. I have to do something extraordinary on my own (or with likeminded people) to get noticed. I am not exactly complaining about that fact. But it did take me six and a half years of being on staff at various theatres to realize that in order do those extraordinary things, to be an aspiring artist and to be recognized as such in my industry, my regular day job can’t be as a technician in the building that hosts such signs.

That’s one layer of incongruity — I am aspiring artist, but the people who commissioned that sign would never know it because they would never look in the electrics shop for those people. On another layer, it’s understandable that the dude in the e-shop isn’t Harman Hall ready. But there are many already established artists in Washington, DC who don’t get a chance to flex their creative aspirations in this theatre. STC still gets most of its designers and lots of cast members from New York, a fact that is true for many regional theatres across the country.

And another layer: that “Patrons Lounge” thing. That room is not for any old ticket holder. There’s a private bar in that lounge and some of the coolest props and weapons that have ever been made for STC over the last 30 years. Just being a subscriber isn’t enough (and that’s not exactly cheap) to get you in either — you have to be a donor at the Artistic Circle level: $1,500 a year and above. My guess is that many, if not most, aspiring young artists can’t afford to do anything but clean that room, let alone experience the glow of feeling some dedication while enjoying a complementary beverage.

I don’t want it to seem like I am picking on Shakespeare Theatre Company; they are major cultural force in DC and lots of people believe in them and their mission and they often do excellent work. As I said, I still freelance for them. But this sign is just so very emblematic of the obliviousness to privilege at the heart of, not just regional theatre, but all forms of cultural production. The people who dedicated the Patrons Lounge meant well, they were sincere. They have helped many young artists develop over the years, just not as many as they could have.

When it comes to matters of diversity, female playwrights and directors, executives and managers and actors who are people of color, the boilerplate response often comes down to the “pipeline problem.” They mean that the streams of creative folk directed at them from the university system and various internship programs and playwrighting competitions don’t have these diverse attributes. If you step around the corner and join me in the crowds of people around the entrance to that “pipeline,” you recognize the real problem. The greatest inefficieny in developing new artists today is the firm belief that theatres, or any other cultural institution, need a pipeline at all. It’s a catastrophic selection problem that blinds our institutions to the possibilities outside the system. There is no spoon.

This is not meant to denigrate the people in the pipeline, but the existing pipeline is filled with people who can afford to not get paid to not do what they want for years before they are allowed to not get paid to do what they want. That’s still a frustrating situation and it’s unfair to the people in the pipeline. But just being in the pipeline requires a level of privilege and financial support excludes so, so many people. And I am not suggesting that those people in the pipeline don’t also struggle and work hard and become great. I am merely pointing out that there are thousands of people who can’t afford to get to a place where they can also get recognition that they too struggle, work hard, and become great.

I am a middle class white kid who did not come from the hood, so I admit that I operate under a vast umbrella of privilege in the United States. My concern with the pipeline problem is not purely altruistic, obviously, but the various ways that the pipeline is broken cuts across every demographic category: gender, race, class, religion, you name it. Why is a creative industry so utterly conventional in its approach to finding talent? Why is it so reliant on a system that has a demonstrated history of being sexist, racist, and classist when we talk up creating positive change in our communities? I’ll never forget the week I spent on a show about oppressed peoples whose director flagrantly ignored every single work rule that a union had collectively bargained for in an effort to protect actors from directors. The cognitive dissonance within our industry is mindblowing.

I remember vividly when I was at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and they were looking for their next artistic director. The guy they ended up going with said to the assembled employees of that theatre, and I’m paraphrasing, “Nobody gets into theatre for the money.” Heads nodded around me. Les Waters is a nice man who has run the theatre well since 2012, and a really good director. But he also makes over $180,000 a year according to their 990 (that’s this year’s 990, not 2012, but it’s still a valid data point). I worked in the electrics shop from August 2011 until April 2012 and was overtime exempt (I wouldn’t be anymore, thanks Obama!). I made less than $20,000 after taxes. I definitely did not get into theatre for the money.

I got my start in theatre because my boss took a risk in hiring an entry level employee. I was 27, didn’t have a degree in theatre (though I did have three other degrees, so I had me some book larning), and had never done anything but intern. I just happened to intern for the right people. I am slowly building a network of people who like my work and eventually, I will be able to put down my wrench. So, that impulse exists within theatre — people take risks, but not on resumes, on people. It’s hardly the stuff of an efficient meritocracy, but creativity is a trust based activity. The intimate contact of creating culture together can be traumatizing when there is a bad apple in the room, to put it mildly. It is understandable that people want to minimize such risks. It’s also understandable that when you are laser focused on the people around you who you have come to trust, and whose development you are proud of that you don’t see the many other trustworthy people who could also be in that room with you. It’s understandable, but regrettable. Those people don’t necessarily feel like this sign had them in mind. That too is regrettable, but understandable.