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Happy Payday! A brief thread about how arts workers are (or are not) valued.
So. For the two weeks prior to this one (aka the last pay period), I was at 75% furlough as part of a ramp down toward an impending complete furlough. So I was working 12-ish hours each week.
During that same period, I began helping out my guy at his bakery, doing light kitchen work. Also about 10-15 hours each week.
Both paychecks landed in my bank account today. And, for roughly the same amount of hours, I made about a hundred dollars more from my work at the bakery.
(Now, my theater gig also provides me with health insurance, even while partially or fully furloughed, which is greatly appreciated).
The work I do for the theater calls for years of education and experience. The work I do for the bakery does not (though other roles in the kitchen do).
Good kitchen work should absolutely be well compensated. I am proud of what I've helped the bakery do, and I love knowing, in a new and first-hand way, how my guy values his employees. So it's not about that.
It's about the fact that dramaturgs are systemically undervalued (see any of the job postings from the last few months), that artistic administrators are systemically undervalued (see all of the companies where the execs make twice - or more - what their entry-level and mid-level
employees make), that freelance artists are systemically undervalued (see... well, basically the entire US theatre field). It's all so broken. And I don't know how to fix it.
And yes, making theater can be joyous. But does the thrill of creation justify the devaluation of the creators?
I don't know that it does. But I also don't know if I'm quite ready to leave the field. All I know today is that seeing those two numbers right next to each other in my bank account really hammered home how little this field that I've given so much time and energy to values me.
