heartache
My heart was deeply broken today. It’s been coming but today.. It all started 11 months ago when a theatre group took up residence in a theatre I work at. Up til this point we had new shows every month. Some were repeat theatre groups like Off Broadway West who put on quality performances and treated the theatre professionally, always left it cleaner then when they got it, helped fix problems and were excellent communicators. Their staff that they hired were always professional and easy to work with. They were one of numerous groups that were just a joy to have in the space. I can count on one hand the crummy experiences with groups and people. Some outrageous, story worthy experiences.
When this new theatre group moved into the space there was a lot of hope that they would help us by creating shows and we would help them by providing a theatre. But there were red flags from day one. The fella steering this ship, we’ll call him the captain, was a horrible communicator and wouldn’t respond to emails, created drama and division amongst us and the staff and wanted to hire me to be his Technical Director (TD) so he didn’t have to monitor his crew. This is not a job I’m interested in doing for productions anymore, and this seemed to really put him off. The amount of time it would take to wrap my head around the material, collaborate on the details and oversee the crew is a job I do not have time for. I’m a retired production TD. I am the venue TD, that’s what I’m good at, that’s what I have time for and that’s what I agreed to do. I’m on call 24/7 and quick to respond and fix any problems or help with requests. For this I’m paid a paltry sum of $400/mo. I’m not complaining but at one point I was told I wasn’t worth that amount. I’ll get there.
The first thing we learned is that the captain refused to oversee his staff. Designers new to the field were given the door code and allowed to roam free which wouldn’t usually be a problem except they were damaging the theatre, leaving it unlocked and unsafe. I spent the first 9 months constantly texting and emailing… Gentle reminder to lock the door, not block the emergency exit, turn off the lights, move hazards from in front of the entryway so I’m not slamming my knee into set pieces, please don’t leave the thousand dollar curtains in a pile on the flloor covered in sawdust, don’t use a paint sprayer in this enclosed space AND without tarping, and on and on with this unprofessional behavior. I say 9 months but it’s still happening into the 11th month.. it’s just now, I believe it’s intentional.
We provided to everyone who works in the space a google drive with picture books of everything we ask. We also have a binder in the lobby and additionally all the documents are sent by email and finally, we schedule a training on using the venue that goes over all this well laid out material, verbally. It covers everything. 25 years of theatre has gotten me to a place where the information is all there, delivered in 3 different formats to consider all learning styles.
But if the captain is lamenting our policies to be unreasonable, spreading it from staff to staff to staff, telling them to ignore us or taking a simple policy and stretching its meaning to be so unreasonable in an effort to prove how outrageous we are to have this policy, that it no longer even remotely looks like the simple policy we laid out, the disease and rot has taken hold and the unprofessionalism moves from crew to crew. There seems to be no way to carve it out as 11 months in, training a new crew this week, I am met with attitude, dismissiveness, assumptions that our policies are unnecessary but they’ll begrudgingly follow it.. and that’s not all.
Our equipment is coming up broken. This morning two amplifiers no longer work. The monitor for the lighting console has deep divots in it as if someone took a sharp object and stabbed at it. I can’t work out how else you get divots in a monitor. They took down our curtain rod, put it back up poorly and when it fell on an actor’s head declared our venue unsafe. Our thousand dollar curtains were found in a heap on the floor covered in sawdust with some mysterious fluid staining them. The amount of paint on those curtains is enraging. One woman, who refused to follow our policies on painting the stage, literally literally did the exact thing we asked her not to do as if in a stand of defiance with a giant fuck you finger to us all. She couldn’t be bothered to move things like the ladder or pull spike tape and painted around and over them. The height of lazy unprofessionalism. I can’t count the number of times I came into an unsafe venue, knocking into things trying to get to the light switch, getting caught on junk sticking out in a walkway. Rotting food and general slovenliness. It’s criminal. Unprofessional amateurs, every damn one of them. We now have a small list of banned design crew.
They stopped paying me, declaring I’m not worth the money when all I do is yell. Anyone that knows me is fully aware I don’t own a yell. I can’t muster up a yell even when deserved. We have since revoked their residency. They will be paying financially for their destruction. They have one more show and it’s going about as well as all the other shows. Little communication. Attitude. Shit left undone. To see the destruction of our equipment this morning was truly the last straw. My heart breaks to see a theatre treated so poorly. Not the work to repair it, that’s my job. I love my job. Normally. I’m broken to witness this obscenity. I just want to cry.
