“I’ve driven home falling asleep at the wheel, windows down, slapping my face to get home at night on local shows where I still might have a 40 minute drive home at 1am after notes.
But also because of our inflexible schedule, and low pay coupled with a scarcity-mindset, I missed my sister’s wedding. I was young and starting out and felt I had no choice.”
“I started to keep track of what my hours in the building were through a payroll app. At the end of my second (and last) season, I had documented proof that there were multiple periods during the season where I would go weeks without having days off (I think one stretch was 7 weeks long) with many of those weeks being 60-70 hour weeks. By that second season, I was exhausted and burnt out; I asked the PM (who had also asked me to become the resident designer the next season) to hire a part-time assistant for me so I could get at least ONE day off a week… I was fired the day after I made that request”
“It’s HARD, and I’m very well-aware that, in my 40s, I’ve never been able to find a way to make many/any personal relationships work because I’m exhausted all the time (physically and mentally) and my “day off”; is usually spent sleeping and doing “life errands.””
“I can’t imagine how this is healthy for me… and when you think about how this schedule really is a barrier to so many other people who want to be theater artists. The way tech schedules are set up, you have to sacrifice your outside life in order to cram as much work into as short a process as possible. Why do we do this to ourselves?”
“It is a grueling schedule that really comes at a cost both creatively and personally…It got to the point where I was missing so much of my kids growing up. I was gone from my wife and kids for 40 weeks out of the year. Even when I was doing a show in town, I wasn’t really ‘home'”
“In my life, I can safely say that I have never made a good decision, in any manner of speaking, past 10 or 10:30pm in the evening.”
“It is not really a 10 out 12 for the designers and other technicians in the venue – Even as an assistant (Broadway level) I never worked less than 16 hours on those days. There are many uncompensated hours – there’s an implicit form of gatekeeping in there.”
“It is a turn-off to young folks from low income communities – they do not see it as a viable career to follow. $2,000 for several weeks of work? If you look at what it comes down to hourly, which I figured out by doing the math, was below minimum wage, you get paid more at Starbucks.”
“…this culture is extra hard on mothers and caretakers when there is an unspoken expectation work in excess of 16-18 hours a day during tech. That does not even account for all of the work accumulated in the process- meetings, managing email, sketches and drawings…etc.”
“How is someone going to ask to leave to go home/set time boundaries on their work to attend to their family obligations when they feel like doing so will cost them all future work?”
“As an assistant, you are especially vulnerable. On one occasion I worked 22+ hours straight with no break for three days in a row- and I mean NO break, not a meal break, not time to sleep- because there was a big “emergency” precipitated by the lead designer’s poor planning and lack of respect for equity rules. He got sleep and breaks, by the way, just not the third assistant.”
“Underpinnings of our industry are made up of this idea that we should never complain – that we feel compelled to give this free labor. And when we question it, we feel frowned upon.”
“My students are mostly BIPOC and 1st or 2nd generation, or are the first to attend college. And the culture of our business is a turn-off for them. We need more economic diversity instead of enforcing an upper middle-class hierarchy to the community.”
“We must understand how this work excludes and contributes to marginalization of BIPOC stories.”
“We should dismantle this macho culture of who can work the hardest and destroy themselves. It is unnecessary and unproductive. I’m not going to do that anymore and I’m not going to train people to do that anymore!”
“I think we’ve all at one point in our early career have done the math to see what our hourly rate is for design… As of result, I felt completely hopeless… How do you even begin to negotiate when this is the norm we live in? A norm in which someone else who can afford to take the job will take the “opportunity” away from you.”
“What is not recorded is the extra time designers spend IN ADDITION to the 12 hours required to be there. LDs are usually there sometimes 4 hours prior and then stay up to 2 hours after… AND THEN we have to sit through a production meeting and makes some of the most important decisions that will effect the course of the week after an exhausting day… These are absolutely hazardous conditions we put ourselves through. I have on more than one occasion almost fallen asleep behind the wheel.”
“I believe that 10 out of 12 schedules is not a realistic schedule for a breastfeeding mother. This is from the perspective of a breastfeeding mom with a husband who works and the baby age two to six months. Clearly, for the single mother, the challenge will be much more… a breastfeeding mother working in a nonprofit (due to the lower fees the theatre needs to provide some sort of assistance for them. If not, the choice becomes either sacrificing a design job or her baby.”
“Some essentials and needs for a breastfeeding mom: housing within walking distance to the theatre, or a private safe space for the caretaker and her child. If the designer is local, the theatre should also provide transportation fees or support for commuting. Using public transportation late night after the production meeting is rough.”
“I accepted a tenure-track position and taught for nearly seven years at a public university with a majority BIPOC student body, and moreover, a significant percentage of underprivileged students, first-generation college students, and DACA recipients. It was saddening, then, to see students immersed in a theatre-making culture which reinforced damaging, self-sacrificing practices… unpaid sessions occurring during class hours, throughout the night… The spirit of volunteerism can be fiery and wonderful, but for many – especially for young BIPOC artists – the approach ultimately discourages engaging theatre as a meaningful profession. The exploitation begins early.”
“…The issues highlighted by the 10/12 tech rehearsal – would come into clear focus when, at age 36, I decided to enter a “soft retirement” of the robust regional theatre career I’d cultivated. It was the year my first child was born. I simply couldn’t afford to maintain a lifestyle that required my regular absence from the home for extensive day and night hours, while sharing with my wife (who also has a full-time career) the responsibilities of raising a child. The extent that I had succeeded to that point already felt, in fact, like an extension of privilege unavailable to artists with a different background.”
“I’ve seen a few designers who have survived and figured out their work, life, and monetary balance under the 10/12 tech schedule but introducing their assistant to the culture of overworking and underpay… I know too many designers who have decided not to do so and sees overworking as a form of initiation.”
“Being in a dark theater for prolonged times reduces my exposure to light, and while low levels of vitamin D is not as much of a big deal for some, it certainly is for people with MS .”
“After 35 years, I have left that job and life because of the abusive schedule that’s expected of us.”
“As someone with both thyroid issues as well as fibromyalgia, it becomes more and more limiting to keep being efficient during these hours. It also means that even when I do a show just an hour away from home, that I purchase a hotel room to ensure my own safety.”
“As a costume designer, a lot of our work happens long before tech. This work is often mentally taxing, and hard on our bodies. Often times our fee is so low, that by the time we make it to tech we are basically working for free.”
“During the week when there are work calls staying in the theatre until midnight and then getting up to be back by 7 am…is onerous to say the least. No human should be asked to exist on 5 hours of sleep for days on end.”
“We’re not able to make the kinds of thoughtful responsive adjustments directors and producers want us to be able to make…”
“From a composer/sound designer point of view: The expectation is that we will work through every break, and then amend or change content after and between tech hours. Each individual addresses this the way that they can. Either they work during the tech itself, and are not as active during the process, or they work outside of tech knowing they will lose time to sleep and eat, but usually it’s a mixture of both depending on what part of the tech you are in.”
“We are one-person teams working through every moment, and between tech, every day through previews. Additionally, when we’ve been asked to be part of rehearsals, there is very rarely compensation for that time as well – or the understanding of the work that is needed to have a rehearsal show in addition to the actual show, and the rigging of that system.”
“What I am finding most detrimental is an expectation to work over breaks And the perceived differences between the tangible and intangible disciplines. Compensation is not equal to time/ pressure.”
“Efficiency – Many times I need the time to do more shopping or get the notes done. I can’t do it if we are required to be there so long.”
“Safety. As a woman, many times I don’t feel safe going home at 12 midnight. Also the safety of my assistants is a concern. Many are starting out and don’t have cars or the funds to take Ubers or Lyft home every night. People have to take public transportation ( because that is all they afford) which isn’t ideal late at night.”
“For the designer and assistants this is at least a 12 hour day, and usually more like 14 when notes after rehearsals and an abbreviated meal break are taken into account. This then leaves less than nine hours before work begins the following day. It’s a grueling schedule and does not promote work/life balance in any way. Quality and quantity of work are directly impacted, quality of life suffers, and it’s is all completely avoidable with advanced planning. To do this 2-3 times per show with 8-12 shows per season is not sustainable for “in house” folks.”
“I can’t take my family to doctors’ appointments, therapy, hospital visits – not to mention just needing to be there for them consistently as a mom and a daughter.”
“I am working as a local designer on an 10 out of 12, I just can’t do this. I can only leave my house so early in the morning to avoid traffic. And I have received push back from some directors about this who expected me to do all my notes outside of the ‘actors time’.”
“Having to be in an environment where there is constant and intense communication is intimidating. Some chronic diseases come with cognitive degeneration and in my case it is loss of words. People with MS tend to lose their words and for me this happens when I have to speak too much. Usually this is being perceived by other people as language incompetence, lack of communication skills, and sometimes even low levels of intelligence and lack of skills.”
“The way the day is being structured doesn’t allow for proper rest and MS fatigue is very real. When I experience it I am THAT tired. Sometimes I even fall asleep instantaneously. Again, I am being perceived as lazy and indifferent. Also, MS fatigue usually occurs in the middle of the day, which means I get to start my day in tech utterly exhausted.”
“When I have 10 out of 12 days, I literally cannot take my meals when needed in order to take my medication. Therefore I either have to change my medication schedule, or eat on the tech table during tech, which will definitely generate and amplify the impression of laziness. Also, people will think I don’t respect them. In order to avoid it, I will most likely have to disclose my medical condition to people regardless of whether I want to or not. Still, this does not guarantee that I will be understood.”
“Sleep deprivation. Sleep is important in MS, and being deprived of it is messing with my cognitive skills, as well as aggravating the physical symptoms. As a non white person and more specifically as a Greek this mostly translates into language incompetency and tendency towards laziness.”
“10 out of 12s from the perspective of a breastfeeding mom. I was not given a place to pump. I would have to do it in the stall of the public bathroom. The building was multi-use – so I had to put up with hearing patrons of other events complain about me taking so much time in the stall. It was a large restroom with multiple stalls and there were other bathrooms in the building.”
“Basically, my break consisted of me going to bathroom and pumping. Sometimes I would have to cut the pumping short to be able to pack everything up, get the milk to the backstage fridge, and then make it back to the table in time. I understand I should have been happy to have the job.”