Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Parabasis: How Theater Became America:

I have a friend who works for a theater. This story is going to sound familiar because it's ubiquitous.  He had to fight for a standard of living wage increase last year because the theater has run deficits for years.  Okay, understandable, we have hard times, you care about your company, you make sacrifices. But... and I'm sure you've already guessed what the kicker is here... they're building a multimillion dollar new space.  Even though they're arguing they can't afford to pay their staff a decent wage.  And it's not like they're saying "hey, included in this capital campaign is a wage increase for you guys, so just hold on, its coming".  They're saying "we can't give you this because times are tight".

Now, this friend doesn't come from money, and he doesn't have a spouse with a good job to support him.  Wouldn't you understand if that friend said "fuck this, I'm going to do theater as a hobby that i love and just go fucking make money somewhere?"  And if he did, we'd lose a very talented person who works long hours for shit pay because he loves being in a literary department and helping writers.

This is yet another way that theater has become america.