“As a disabled person, I feel like I constantly just have to “suck it up” and deal with my
chronic pain which is always exacerbated by long tech days…I take care of myself (which being scared of having to call out without having someone who knows my track definitely makes me do)…the long days make having a flare up more likely and almost impossible to recover from if I’m not able to get a full nights sleep. I’m only 22 and I imagine this all will only get worse as I age.”
“A 16+ hour day might sound absurd, but it was my lived experience when in tech for a new musical during undergrad when SMs averaged 17-18 hours in the building for 10/12s. On average, I find a 15-16 hour day to be the norm for a scheduled 10/12.”
“The more 10/12s in a process, the more time stage managers sacrifice from their sleep and self care patterns, leading to greater fatigue as time goes on.”
“10/12s also mean less safety. Those final hours of rehearsal, especially the last hour, are when people get sloppy, injuries happen, tech is less efficient, and everyone’s patience starts to wear thin. This is the effect of exhaustion, not of laziness.”
“According to most (all?) AEA contracts, actors need a 12 hour turnaround from when their call is finished one evening and when they can be called back the next day. Why are stage managers not given the same consideration, taking into account the extra hours we all work but aren’t reported?”
“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'”
“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…”
“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.”