I’ve been asked a lot over the last few months whether I’ll change my career as a result of the pandemic. I won’t be. Here’s why, along with some new year’s thoughts, primarily about commercial theatre which I know best... (Thread!) 1/

First, the macro. Theatre has survived millennia of wars, famines, natural disasters, censorship, outright banning, and, yes, pandemics. Stories and theatrical tellings of them are found in every culture there’s been. Theatre faces a huge threat, but it isn’t going away. 2/

I do think theatre will change fundamentally (more on that in a mo), but I think Covid has accelerated, rather than initiated, those changes. Whatever happens, people will be theatrically telling stories for millennia to come. 3/

There’s also the personal. I have spent almost 10 years working to build a career in this bizarre, often exploitative, industry. The vast majority of my career, I’ve earned less than the minimum wage, including in some very senior roles. To toss that graft out now feels wrong. 4/

I’m so privileged to have a family home in London which means I have been able to struggle through on minuscule pay to build a CV. We’re by no means rich, we’re arguably barely even middle class these days, but it’s just enough to have sustained me. 5/

But I’ve also never really been in it for money. I gain so much by doing what I love, & while I want to earn a better living over the next 10 years, it doesn’t dictate my decision making when I’m able to just about make it through on peanuts. So I won’t change career for cash. 6/

But I do think my career will change. I think the next era of leading producers (which obvs I’d like to be 1 of) has a different outlook than our predecessors. We’re more collaborative & less inclined to build fortresses around “our” projects. 7/

We’re invested in campaigns for social change. We’re almost all Labour voters. We have suffered through exploitative internships, “freelance” contracts that should be employment contracts, job insecurity, mountains of student and personal debt, and the impact of the ‘08 crash. 8/

All this means that as we slowly move into producing larger and larger work, we do so with a different view to those who came before us. You can see green shoots already in the way some emerging West End producers run their operations. It doesn’t “feel” like what came before. 9/

I don’t for a moment mean to shit on the work of the current batch of leading producers. They are marvellous in myriad ways, and it’s all too easy to mouth off about them on Twitter when you’ve never handled a budget running to tens of millions. Without them, there is not us. 10/

But I do think we have things to offer, and are sure as hell offering those things to the industry. So I won’t quit because the world has hit one extraordinary hurdle that is going to take years, if not decades, to respond to. 11/

I also don’t think we’re likely to ever see another ATG or DMT again. Not that I’m predicting a break up of ATG, but I don’t think anyone will seek to build that empire in future. There’s far more of us than there were then, and frankly buying theatres is too expensive now. 12/

For a while now the Arts Council has become increasingly concerned with how orgs work alongside local communities. I think this has been mirrored in commercial theatre - by those very same leaders I mentioned - already. I see it even more in younger producers’ work. 13/

We’re trying harder and harder to address ticket pricing, working conditions, equality, routes into the industry, ways to engage with the public before and after the curtain rises and falls, and so on and on and on. 14/

Is it fixed right now? No of course not. Will it ever be perfect? Quite possibly no. Are we collectively committed to strive towards and actively create a more perfect system? I think so. I see so many reasons to be optimistic and hopeful about what comes next. 15/

Twitter often is used to complain about and call out wrongs. There’s nothing specifically wrong with that. But there is also much to celebrate, and much to be excited about. I’m only a tiny cog in this industry, and I’m not in the high level email chains or Zoom calls... 16/

But I do hear bits on the grapevine and I know full well that there isn’t a soul who wants a cruel ecosystem or an industry that is dysfunctional. And I truly believe we’re on track for a better, more perfect “union” of an industry. 17/

So my new year’s resolution is to work on that. Work to make my work & that of my peers and colleagues better in every sense. Not to quit, or tantrum on social, or to use these tools to divide and stoke anger. I’m not in it for popularity, and that’s so freeing. Join me! 18/18