[SML] Student workers (was: Aggregrate hours for majors?)

Wed Nov 11 18:55:52 UTC 2015

Dear Richard,

I have to say that I read your first post the same way that Larry did, but this one has a subtler point and a worthwhile one, and gets to why I am resistant to the idea of requiring majors to do 50 hours/semester outside of any class requirements.  The students should see the value in the work as support for their community, as support for their peers, even if they don’t find the enjoyment in the work for work’s sake.  There are days where the job is setting up chairs for a performance and that is a hard thing to get excited about, but the value comes from contributing to the department that you are a part of, which is what I am struggling to have the students realize.  I do think a draconian requirement will only cause dread rather than engender the enthusiasm that’s necessary.

The argument that the primary reason to employ students (and I am likely overstating your point) is to save on cost is specious because the basic ability to work with your hands and to know how the other half lives (tech v. actor) is invaluable.  Which is why tech students should also take acting and directing classes and even maybe audition once a year.  At the (liberal arts) undergrad level, to teach that theatre is collaborative and then draw sharp divisions between what-work-is-whose should run counter to educating the whole artist, whether actor, designer, or technician.  Even if I got a grant tomorrow that allowed me to hire professional electricians and carpenters for all of my shows in perpetuity, I would still require my classes to put in hours and run shows and I would still want majors to take an active part backstage.

Not every student will want to work every possible assignment as you did (and as I did), but there should be a sense of responsibility to make sure that your peers and your department are shown in the best light, especially if you are an actor in the show that is going up, and to help students understand that, I am not averse to an “eat your spinach, it’s good for you” approach to requiring load-ins and strikes from majors.

So the question changes, I suppose, to: How has anyone built the majors into a community that is invested in the season?

John

> On Nov 11, 2015, at 1:00 PM, Richard Niederberg via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> 
> Dear Larry,
> I'll try not to take such an inflammatory approach as you have in your previous response: many of your assumptions are untrue, and you have misquoted my advice given freely. Students conscripted to do work that they neither then, nor now, see the value of appear to resemble young adults drafted into the armed forces, in that it may be a valuable experience for them, but may still be perceived as 'Slave Labor' at the time. Before earning my Doctorate in 1982, I produced shows starting in 1970 and took a wide variety of classes, and did plenty of what I felt was labor done primarily to lower the University's production costs, while still paying full tuition and working on Productions at IA-signatory theaters in the Southern California market, whence I was paid. The rationale: I wanted to work at every possible assignment, and take classes in every relevant discipline so that, as a Producer, few artists Directors, Designers, Actors, Stage Managers, Investors, or other above-the-line persons could influence me to allocate resources where they were not actually needed, contrary to my fiduciary duties as a Producer and Artistic Director. Over the years, I successfully learned to spot Waste, Unsafe Conditions, Illegality, and 'Creative Accounting', not mention elements that I thought would turn off audiences - not because that they were controversial, but merely boring, the anathema to Earned Income.
> /s/ Richard. 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Lawrence E. Stahl via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net <mailto:stagecraft at theatrical.net>> wrote:
> I want to push back against Mr. Niederberg's insinuation that students working on college productions constitute "slave labor" because they are not paid.   In my opinion it is incorrect both to say this is done primarily for practical reasons and also to declare it to be "philosophically suspect" (aka: “wrong”).   Money is not the only thing of value, at college or elsewhere.   Exposure to new ideas, experiences, techniques, and people is also of value, and providing that exposure is one of the things that colleges do well when things are working right, and ought to do more of whenever possible.   I work for a small liberal arts college, with all of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in that circumstance.   We don't try to make our students actively unemployable, but we are also not a professional training program.  There are many excellent conservatory-based pre-professional training programs that do what they do because that's what their faculty believes in, which is great, but just as we cannot do some of what they do, they can’t do some of what we do.   Both approaches are valid.  Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.  Each student has to choose the approach that best suits her or his interests, attitudes, abilities, and goals.
> 
> Mr. Niederberg implies that since he has learned to deal with the many hidden expenses he enumerated in his post when producing a show, anyone who can't do what he does the way he thinks it should be done is somehow not employable.   Bull puckey.   I have heard variations on that for most of my career, along with the companion idea that college plays are really just subsidized vanity productions for hopelessly incompetent faculty who can’t get “real” producers to back their shows.   Also bull puckey.   Almost all of our productions are student-directed and designed.  Yes the infrastructure of the facility and the pre-existing props, costumes, and set pieces are provided for “free”--unless you count their ridiculously high tuition-- but our students are kept to a small and strictly enforced budget for production-specific expenditures.   The occasional faculty -directed or -designed show does in fact take place in part to allow faculty to keep skills sharp and to scratch their artistic itch, but they are also done to model the behavior the faculty expect of our students in how they prepare, how they work in the rehearsal room, and how they communicate with all members of the production.   The fact that each of the faculty members at my school has a different approach to directing and designing and to the rehearsal and performance process of a show is a strength and not a weakness of our program, in my opinion, and one that I openly discuss with our students. 
> 
> 
> Exposing students to as many aspects of and approaches to theatre as possible within the acknowledged limits of our particular faculty, our facility, and our imagination is an essential component of our pedagogy.   Insisting that they engage with the liberal arts ethos of our college by studying a broad range of academic disciplines other than theatre is another part.  We do not consider that to be wasted time that would have been better spent calculating the pro-rated cost of toilet paper.  We expend a considerable effort to convince our students that ultimately our job is to teach them how to teach themselves, though I am acutely aware that we do not always achieve that goal.   There is no way we can give each one of them an identical education or cover every conceivable part of the theatrical universe.   We do not even come close to that nor do we claim to, but we do insist that everyone go up to the plate and take a swing at as many pitches as they can while they are here.  That includes students interested primarily in design or tech auditioning for and taking on acting roles, just as much as it does having students mostly interested in acting helping at load-in's, work calls, and strikes, and designing as well.   As I said earlier, it doesn’t always work as well as we’d like to hope, but when it does it’s pretty amazing.  
> 
> Um... well, I guess that pushed my buttons a little more that I realized when I started typing.   Sorry for the length of this post, and have a better day.
> 
> 
> Larry Stahl
> Technical Director
> Gibson Center for the Arts
> Washington College.
> Chestertown, MD 21620
> 
> 
> Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 17:01:10 -0800
> From: Richard Niederberg <ladesigners at gmail.com <mailto:ladesigners at gmail.com>>
> To: Stagecraft Mailing List <stagecraft at theatrical.net <mailto:stagecraft at theatrical.net>>
> Subject: Re: [SML] Aggregate hours for majors?
> Message-ID:
> <CAJSxm-+_VOzfAug6w+-zYZhgCUrS9E0YgmkyyFEDx5GPunAL-w at mail.gmail.com <mailto:CAJSxm-+_VOzfAug6w+-zYZhgCUrS9E0YgmkyyFEDx5GPunAL-w at mail.gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Dear John,
> It sounds like your institution, among most others, relies upon 'Slave
> Labor' to get the work done. This may be a practical approach, but it is
> philosophically suspect. Meanwhile, I am finding freshly minted graduates
> from most of these same institutions do not have the capacity to bid a job,
> whether it is building a Costume, a piece of Scenery, a Prop, or a lighting
> the stage for a production. They fail to consider overhead, such as FICA,
> FUTA, SDI. Workman's Compensation, or other employment taxes and fees,
> occupancy, and such incidentals as ordinary light bulbs, toilet paper,
> light and water bills, blades, maintenance of equipment, or other costs of
> doing business, We are in Show BUSINESS, NOT Show Talent. With a sound
> business basis, Art will be supported and enhanced.
> /s/ Richard
> _________
> 
> 
> 
> Larry Stahl
> Technical Director
> Gibson Center for the Arts
> Washington College
> 300 Washington Ave.
> Chestertown, MD 21620
> 410-778-7859 <tel:410-778-7859>
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> /s/ Richard
> _________
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