“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?”
“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?”
“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.”
“Usually, during that last hour, you start second guess what’s already been done and you come back the next day and you realize that what you did just doesn’t work.”
“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.”
“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'”
“…as someone who was once a child actor, I know how stressful it is to juggle both school and being in a show. It leads you to fall behind as a student and sent me through lots of stress at such a young age.”
“After 35 years, I have left that job and life because of the abusive schedule that’s expected of us.”
“And there was one night where it was a few minutes to the time we supposed to be released for the day but the director insisted that we run the scene that was just teched before leave. There clearly wasn’t enough time to do this and everyone was dead tired but our stage manager did not stop it. This scene required a transition into another scene where a multi-hundred pound living room set had to be hung maybe 40-50 feet in the air. Now because everyone was rushing to get this done since we were clearly the out of time for that day’s 10/12, the set piece was not hung properly and almost dropped on a cast member who thankfully had moved out of the way in time.”
“A 10/12 or whatever the tech rehearsal length is easily and normally a 14-16 hour day, and it takes a physical and emotional toll. I’ve had off and on tingling on one of my feet for a few months for being on my feet so much over several weeks of putting in a show. I have a permanent knot in my neck now, and during a few weeks of one tech I could not fully turn my head.”
“I mean it’s just a misnomer because it implies you’re only working 10 hours…And it’s exhausting. Not all of us can afford cabs home late at night, trains run even slower and the further out you live because rent, the harder the cycle becomes.”
“As a Production Stage Manager and Mother of 7-year old twins, 10/12s are killing me. I wish theaters would either reduce these tech hours or provide robust childcare.”
“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.”