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

Thu Nov 19 00:26:49 UTC 2015

My local is just beginning a program where we are working directly
with two colleges that are starting or expanding technical theater
programs to produce students that can qualify to work in the union and
be useful on the job.

>From the college side, they are readjusting the curriculum to teach
the skills we need them to have as well as the necessary
certifications. On the union side, we are working out internships for
these students, include some of them in our in-service training,
providing instructors for specific things and creating a pathway for
helping these students get on the over-hire list and even starting
them towards union cards.
---
Steven Santos
Director
Simply Circus, Inc.
86 Los Angeles Street
Newton, MA 02458

P: 617-527-0667
F: 617-934-1870
E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Lawrence E. Stahl via Stagecraft
<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>
> To: Stagecraft Mailing List <stagecraft at theatrical.net>
> Subject: Re: [SML] Aggregate hours for majors?
> Message-ID:
> <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
>
>
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