This week my manager told me how much my tv contract should be next year. I was taken aback for two reasons: 1) it was an unusually high amount and 2) value appraisal was a concept I was unfamiliar with as a playwright.
On the first point, the number he listed sounded unusually high...but then I realized that maybe I underestimated myself in regard to my worth in the system.
I have been well trained by the ethics of theatre to be happy and grateful and to fit within the confines of an institution. The universal thought when dealing with major theatre organizations is a) you should be happy to be in the room and b) the artist is the last to get paid. In lieu of payment, an emerging talent will get exposure and accolades. They will get a feature spread in a magazine and a glossy picture on their website while shiny new artists struggles to pay their bills. The artist is just happy to be on the page and getting exposure: their expenses, rent, and livelihood is their concern, even if the artist's emerging shimmer helps attract donors to the theatre company.
But what if it's the complete opposite of my understanding? What if the prestigious organizations are just empty shells without the genius and passion of artists? What if the institutions should be making their budget according to the needs of the artists first and then all its other things second? After all, people don't go to theatre for the admin. Just like how the major agency tried to instill fear in the Writers Guild by telling us how valuable packaging was for film...no one goes to a movie because of the really sweet package CAA and WME arranged between the writer, director, and producers. It is a delusion of middle men who elevate themselves into the central role in art that allows for artists to be treated last and in the worst way. But the really dynamic is between the artist and the audience. That's it. That's the entire process of theatre. Anything that gets between those two factors is the middle man. The packaging the marketing the website...they all play second fiddle to the actual content. This isn't some pie-in-the-sky altruism. There have been many theatres who rise to the forefront, acquire a lot of money, start producing mediocre work, inflate their own value beyond what the artist is providing...and then they die. Theatres die all the time. They die by hubris or board-homicide or admin mismanagement. There is NO arts organization that dies because of the artists. There is no theatre that dies because they have overcommitted to the artists because quality artists are inherently NOT greedy. The top quality theatremakers are almost always obsessed with the work. They are
Out of the first point comes my second: in this system I had underestimation my worth to the system and my artistic value. When the arts institutions is valued over the artist, then the individual talent is just a budget item, and that item is low on the spreadsheet. But there is something deeper than my worth to a system and that's actual value. Personal value is independent of the organization. It is an ethical awareness why my art is priceless. The payment -whatever the amount- is paltry.
This is all very difficult to understand for American artists because we live in a capitalist system created out of slavery. In our system labor is intentionally denigrated. We value management over labor, In almost all situations, a worker is told that if they work hard enough, they can become a manager of sorts. A screenwriter is told that -if they're successful enough- maybe one day they can direct. A director is told that if they work hard enough, they can produce. A producer is told that if they're successful enough, they can run a studio, and on and on it goes. The flowchart is always up and away from actually producing something and more toward the management of the people who do the producing. A teacher will one day be a vice principal and then principal and maybe even run a school system, but the teaching itself is less valued as you go up the ladder..even though teaching IS the thing at the heart of our education system. Great directors in theatre will eventually be offered the chance to become an artistic director because an AD gets to manage other directors. They are further away from the process of creation and therefore -in our upside-down world of American capitalism- they are more worthy. In our model, the less you do the more valuable you become. So the artist at the crux of arts institutions -is the least valued component because they DO ALL THE ART. The dream of arts org is the same as the factory worker and the teacher and the store clerk: to rise above doing the thing the organization exists to serve or make.
In TV, there is a funny loophole: it's a writers medium. As much as networks and productions companies may try (and believe me they do try) American tv model is about cranking out story. TV is a plot monster and writers' room is the point where storytellers form like Voltron to create the massive tonnage of story needed for a season. The power dynamic is different in other countries. In the UK, the writer is king but because a typical season of British tv is 6-8 episodes, there is less need of a writers' room. An individual writer can crank out everything, so it seems empowering. But really what happens is that there is less opportunity for working writers to organize and talk under that system. They are each in charge of their little ship and focused on that. Canadian tv is producer run and -according to many of my Canadian friends- awful. The writer comes second. American tv rules the world because -by some weird flux of history- they actually put the content-creators in a room together so they could talk/organize/unionize and build. The revolution in American tv has flowed out to other countries. British TV is becoming more like America, not the other way around. And American TV writers get paid more than their international counterparts. They have better healthcare, more rights, better leverage (except for movies where the director/manager still rules).
The talk I had with my manager made me rethink all the ways I've been operating in theatre. It made me look at myself differently. I have less groveling in my voice when I go into an institution because I know they should be lucky to have me...not the other way around. And there is power in knowing your value.
On the first point, the number he listed sounded unusually high...but then I realized that maybe I underestimated myself in regard to my worth in the system.
I have been well trained by the ethics of theatre to be happy and grateful and to fit within the confines of an institution. The universal thought when dealing with major theatre organizations is a) you should be happy to be in the room and b) the artist is the last to get paid. In lieu of payment, an emerging talent will get exposure and accolades. They will get a feature spread in a magazine and a glossy picture on their website while shiny new artists struggles to pay their bills. The artist is just happy to be on the page and getting exposure: their expenses, rent, and livelihood is their concern, even if the artist's emerging shimmer helps attract donors to the theatre company.
But what if it's the complete opposite of my understanding? What if the prestigious organizations are just empty shells without the genius and passion of artists? What if the institutions should be making their budget according to the needs of the artists first and then all its other things second? After all, people don't go to theatre for the admin. Just like how the major agency tried to instill fear in the Writers Guild by telling us how valuable packaging was for film...no one goes to a movie because of the really sweet package CAA and WME arranged between the writer, director, and producers. It is a delusion of middle men who elevate themselves into the central role in art that allows for artists to be treated last and in the worst way. But the really dynamic is between the artist and the audience. That's it. That's the entire process of theatre. Anything that gets between those two factors is the middle man. The packaging the marketing the website...they all play second fiddle to the actual content. This isn't some pie-in-the-sky altruism. There have been many theatres who rise to the forefront, acquire a lot of money, start producing mediocre work, inflate their own value beyond what the artist is providing...and then they die. Theatres die all the time. They die by hubris or board-homicide or admin mismanagement. There is NO arts organization that dies because of the artists. There is no theatre that dies because they have overcommitted to the artists because quality artists are inherently NOT greedy. The top quality theatremakers are almost always obsessed with the work. They are
Out of the first point comes my second: in this system I had underestimation my worth to the system and my artistic value. When the arts institutions is valued over the artist, then the individual talent is just a budget item, and that item is low on the spreadsheet. But there is something deeper than my worth to a system and that's actual value. Personal value is independent of the organization. It is an ethical awareness why my art is priceless. The payment -whatever the amount- is paltry.
This is all very difficult to understand for American artists because we live in a capitalist system created out of slavery. In our system labor is intentionally denigrated. We value management over labor, In almost all situations, a worker is told that if they work hard enough, they can become a manager of sorts. A screenwriter is told that -if they're successful enough- maybe one day they can direct. A director is told that if they work hard enough, they can produce. A producer is told that if they're successful enough, they can run a studio, and on and on it goes. The flowchart is always up and away from actually producing something and more toward the management of the people who do the producing. A teacher will one day be a vice principal and then principal and maybe even run a school system, but the teaching itself is less valued as you go up the ladder..even though teaching IS the thing at the heart of our education system. Great directors in theatre will eventually be offered the chance to become an artistic director because an AD gets to manage other directors. They are further away from the process of creation and therefore -in our upside-down world of American capitalism- they are more worthy. In our model, the less you do the more valuable you become. So the artist at the crux of arts institutions -is the least valued component because they DO ALL THE ART. The dream of arts org is the same as the factory worker and the teacher and the store clerk: to rise above doing the thing the organization exists to serve or make.
In TV, there is a funny loophole: it's a writers medium. As much as networks and productions companies may try (and believe me they do try) American tv model is about cranking out story. TV is a plot monster and writers' room is the point where storytellers form like Voltron to create the massive tonnage of story needed for a season. The power dynamic is different in other countries. In the UK, the writer is king but because a typical season of British tv is 6-8 episodes, there is less need of a writers' room. An individual writer can crank out everything, so it seems empowering. But really what happens is that there is less opportunity for working writers to organize and talk under that system. They are each in charge of their little ship and focused on that. Canadian tv is producer run and -according to many of my Canadian friends- awful. The writer comes second. American tv rules the world because -by some weird flux of history- they actually put the content-creators in a room together so they could talk/organize/unionize and build. The revolution in American tv has flowed out to other countries. British TV is becoming more like America, not the other way around. And American TV writers get paid more than their international counterparts. They have better healthcare, more rights, better leverage (except for movies where the director/manager still rules).
The talk I had with my manager made me rethink all the ways I've been operating in theatre. It made me look at myself differently. I have less groveling in my voice when I go into an institution because I know they should be lucky to have me...not the other way around. And there is power in knowing your value.
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