01 Apr SDUK Blog – Eleanor Rhode
Tentatively peeking over the parapet of the Pandemic, I’m struck by how much has changed. Finances are tighter, priorities have changed, and things feel a lot more fragile than they did two years ago. Is it safe to come out yet?
I’m also struck by how little has changed. I have had multiple conversations in the last few months with director and designer colleagues, other freelancers like myself whose experience mirrors my own. We are all happy that work is starting to trickle in again, that we’re getting the chance to find our way back to some sort of normality. But that normality includes the same old stresses and problems that existed before the pandemic. The low pay. The lack of access to independent funding outside of the structure of major buildings. And don’t get me started on contracts. Why is it still considered normal practice to expect Directors to begin working on a project before their contract has been finalised, without any money up front to secure their time?
Now look, I get that we’ve just been through a period of unprecedented stress and discombobulating. Institutions are in a flurry, coping with a programming backlog, redundancies, and the ever-present threat of a Covid resurgence. It has been extremely hard for everyone. I do not for a second envy anyone trying to keep a building or a company afloat right now. They are doing the work of heroes. But so are freelancers. In fact, we’ve been doing it for quite a while – essentially what most of us do is subside theatre productions, throwing in enormous swathes of energy and time and skill for no job security and poor pay.
Granted things have got harder in the last two years, but I cannot see that any of these problems exist because of the pandemic. They exist because for a long time the theatre industry has been run by and constructed around the needs of a very small, very privileged demographic who do not necessarily need to worry about paying the bills while waiting for their first fee instalment, or desperately trying to arrange childcare while the theatre keeps changing the parameters of the project. Though there have been attempts at building inclusivity and access, ultimately we are all still stuck in the mud, in part because the fundamentals of how the industry was constructed have not changed. This is the shape of the business, and we all have to bend over backwards to make ourselves fit, or leave.
There was a lot of talk, particularly during the first Lockdown, about how the industry as a whole needed to recognise how bad conditions are for the freelance workforce. It was inspiring and exciting, to have such a wide selection of practitioners come together and openly talk about something we have all, as individuals, known for a very long time – that this way of working just is unsustainable and unfair. But for all the brilliant discussions and forums created to try and give freelancers a voice, two years on it doesn’t really feel like there has been any substantive change to our industry. The less cynical part of me would like to think that the will to change things is there, it is just circumstance that means that any transformation is slow and difficult and tiresome. The other part of me – the bigger part – is really, really angry and cannot see the point in continuing to work in a system that so gruelling and so unforgiving.
I was really grateful, therefore, to be voted onto the SDUK Board in 2020 – it felt like an incredible opportunity to channel my energy and my frustration into positive action. All the Board have fire in their bellies and believe passionately in fighting for Directors to have a stronger voice in our industry. We’re all impatient to drive change forward for our members.
So when I say that there hasn’t been any substantive change in our industry, I should add the caveat: until now. By the time you read this blog, the members of Stage Directors UK will have met at a special EGM to decide whether we should form a Trade Union. Time will tell what the results of this meeting will be – but whatever happens, it will be because our members have decided it for themselves. I’m excited to hear what you all have to say.