Rewriting My Fairytale....: March 2013

Monday 11 March 2013

"I would do anything for love, but I won't do that"

I remember a time when Sunday was truly a day of rest, not in the biblical sense, but all we had to do was do chores, see family, and listen to the wireless......standard Sunday stuff,a simpler time. But soon modern life demanded so much of our time that we needed supermarkets to open for a few hours on Sunday because our Saturdays were too full to fit in a weekly shop. Then it snowballed as shopping centres and most other amenities followed suit, until a Sunday is pretty much like a Saturday in terms of retail. And now the same is happening in theatre.

When I started as an actress 11 years ago we still kept the theatre hours of yonder year; Monday to Saturday performances, 8 shows a week and Sundays off. In the last few years Sunday matinees have appeared for these ‘Sunday like Saturday’ busy folk and now the new Equity West End Settlement wants to add an extra performance making Sunday a two show day.

The theatre industry is up in arms.

I don’t want to join in this new journalistic style of creating an article out of Tweets but here are some opinions from cyber space:-

“Stomp has done two shows on a Sunday for years, and have two days off instead of one #WestEndSettlement”

“REJECT #WestEndSettlement please everyone RT. I love my job but its important to be able to have a work/life balance.”

“No payment for background recordings?! So we are obsolete and having to do/feel so for free. Cheers. #WestEndSettlement”

“@EquityUK members: 2 shows on a Sunday? Performers with school-age children will become absentee parents. REJECT THE #WestEndSettlement”

This new settlement is the result of Equity members fighting the last deal that left West End understudies worse off financially. They felt it unjustified that understudies rehearsed and performed for no extra fee just because the parts they covered didn’t have a whole song and therefore were deemed not main roles. This has been rectified in the new deal but with some savage hidden extras in paternity pay, stage management and obligatory press calls. Yes, understudies in “supporting roles” will be paid and the settlement says that this leaves agents free to negotiate understudy pay. We all know that this means ‘jack.’ In recent years understudy fees are completely un-negotiable, perhaps because of this deal but mainly because there will be a list of 5 other actors below who will accept that fee/any fee and so you cannot push too hard. This will not change.

Business, at a fundamental level, is to supply the demand. This is particularly pertinent when so many industries are vying for income; if the customer (audience member- willing to pay the price of a week in Spain for a family of 4 to watch a West End musical) wants and will attend a Sunday night performance then theatres would be churlish to lose the business. But with the often dodgy Sunday public transport who would risk keeping the kids up late before school only to be stranded on the District Line?

You can also argue that in these lean times actors are lucky to be in work. Jobs and auditions are scare so shouldn’t actors do all that is necessary to support the industry and keep themselves in work? In the words of Meatloaf “I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that,” because although we are lucky to do our hobby for a living it is still our job. We deal with the same work/life balance issues that normal folk do and despite common folklore we don’t constantly listen to musical theatre on our iPods or lose the need to see our families because we love our show family so much.

I feel that having two shows on a Sunday would mean losing that tiny bit of normalcy that actors like me,crave, and therefore personally find the prospect of a 2-show Sunday terrible. But if we study current contracts, Sunday shows can always be added, so how relevant is this new clause? Should we worry more about paternity alterations and obligatory press calls? Or is working on a Sunday just part of the sacrifices a worker must make for any job, as those in Sainsbury’s have done before us?

I would wish to preserve the actors’ working week and remind theatre managers that although we feel jolly lucky to do what we love for a living it is exactly that, for a living. So don’t take the p*ss and make us do it for free, there are amateur theatre companies for that.

The most important thing to come out these tweets and opinion is the chance to speak out. We have a union and for all its faults, at the risk of sounding like a crap ad for the local election, if you aren’t an Equity member then how much do you care about your industry? There’s no point bitching in the dressing room or on the Internet if you are not prepared to say it out loud. The problem with our union is it is unable to act; we all have views but are often reticent to air them because we feel replaceable and are too frightened to cause a stink. I am not suggesting we storm the streets of Soho or build a barricade in St Martin’s Lane but take the time to go to an Equity meeting and vote to have your say, whatever it is.

Just because we spend our time reciting other people’s words doesn’t mean there isn’t value in our own.

Read the proposed settlement here https://t.co/n5hDDrHCYT

Check out the Stage Status forum and join the community discussing this . http://stagestatus.co.uk/forums/topic/472/westendsettlement

and if you think it is just the theatre industry read a freelance journalist's account of emails with an editor wanting him to write for free http://natethayer.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-freelance-journalist-2013/

Monday 4 March 2013

If the slipper fits - the responsibility of a casting director

Most people have now seen the Les Mis movie and sadly it is almost unanimous that Russell Crowe was a goddamn awful Javert. This upset me because I have had the privilege of seeing some incredible West End actors perform Javert with the vocal and physical gravitas required to give this character strength and dimension. Sadly, to me, Crowe looked out of place and every time director Tom Hooper swooped in for a close up we saw the uncomfortable fear in his eyes, resulting not from the wobbly roof top walking but from the wobbly attempts to act through song. So in our fickle and judgemental way we all hailed “Crowe was rubbish!”

But is he rubbish? Or just entirely miss-cast? You don’t see Nina Gold or Sir Cameron Mackintosh being lambasted all over the Internet when he was their choice; it is Crowe who takes the personal flack.

If a casting director cast me as the balletic White Cat in "Cats" just because they liked me as a person or thought my name would sell tickets (it obviously won’t but I’m being hypothetical! OK, delusional but bear with me..!) the Tom Hooper close up would reveal the fear in my eyes and size of my thighs and my complete lack of suitability for the role. I may have held my own in "The Last Five Years" or "Avenue Q" but anyone who judged me on that hypothetical car crash of a dance performance would write me off as crap.

But back to Russell - I sat and watched "Cinderella Man" last night and it inspired these musings. It is a terrific film (watch it if you haven’t seen it) with truly great acting performances from Crowe and Renee Zellweger. He is energetic, cheeky and wholly embodies the boxer who goes from rags to riches; the close ups reveal the character’s struggle and determination not the actor’s struggle to communicate. It restored my faith in him as an actor and made me think that the casting team do bear a lot more responsibility than we give them credit for. Instead of their names scrolling past apologetically in the final credits, perhaps the casting director should come as a preface to the actors’ names in the opening titles. “I, blah blah blah CDG, chose the following actors for this film, tweet me if you have any issues not the actors who are just working as cast.”

The “Cinderella Man” story had fairytale qualities and Crowe’s performances have a fairytale-like moral. Prince Charming only married Cinderella because her foot fitted the slipper perfectly; he didn’t make do with an ugly sister because she wedged her toes in and might attract more punters at the ceremony. Crowe’s performance was spot on in that film because the role suited his capabilities as an actor whereas perhaps the wholly different skill of acting through song is not his forte. It’s not his fault; Eddie Redmayne probably would have played a rubbish boxer. Fairy tales are all about fitting perfectly; Goldilocks chooses the porridge that is “just right” not the one “that’ll do.”

So hopefully this might make us more lenient on big name performances and even help us to accept the acting rejections of our own. If a casting director says we are “just not right for the role” maybe it is a saving grace and could save us lots of backlash if we attempted a role that just doesn’t sit on us correctly. Much of a final performance is an actor’s responsibility but keep in mind the team who put them there in the first place.

Friday 1 March 2013

Busy doing nothing, working the whole day through...

I have read two pieces this week about working from home; one from the popular blogger Girl Lost in the City about the stigma attached to working for yourself and another by Anya Kamenetz citing why freelancers are more likely to suffer from depression. One had the uplifting argument that we have the ability to work and be productive anywhere whilst the other, well if freelance people weren’t depressed already, they were after reading it. It had me running to the nearest water cooler for co-worker support and a pension scheme.

Now seems the perfect time to mention that I am typing in my pyjamas ensconced in my freelancing day and contemplating a lunch-time run before teaching this evening.

The freelancing stereotype, although substitute coffee for green tea for me!

So what is “freelancing” and why should it contribute to depression? Trusty old Wikipedia says “A freelancer is somebody who is self-employed and not committed to a particular employer long term.” You can argue that actors are freelance workers because we offer our services out to companies and remain self-employed whilst completing contracts. Freelance folk have to hustle for work; writers pitch to editors and actors audition, it is up to the freelancer to generate work for themselves. The only boss you need to answer to if your bank balance is getting depressed is yourself. And here lies the juxtaposition of joy and despair.

You can work on countless different projects, challenge yourself and make up your own hours but if there is no work to be found you cannot force an employer to hire you or pay that long overdue invoice.

Kamenetz argues that for all the variety and flexibility linked to freelancing, the financial insecurity and rejections are likely to make someone depressed because job satisfaction is proven to have a strong impact on a person’s mental health.

I have mentioned before both on here and in my forthcoming article for The Fourthwall Magazine that keeping yourself “up” in-between jobs is vital for an actor; if we sink into a vulnerable self-loathing state then audition panels will pick up on our negative energy, agree that we probably are talentless and not give us work. But this is easier said than done; when your talents are employed you feel useful, worthy and busy and without that stimulation you need to be Pollyanna to find job satisfaction every day.

“A workplace should never be defined as where your desktop computer lives; it should be where your commitment does.”

says Girl Lost in the City, we don’t need to be tethered to an office desk to be productive but I suppose the balance is, when reading the piece on depression, the level of commitment. How do you motivate yourself to pitch for tenth time this morning or go to yet another audition when the train fare could buy you groceries instead. If you have the assignments or auditions you can of course work anywhere with dedication because there is work there to be completed, the problem lies when the ‘work well’ has run dry. It can happen to the most talented freelancer without rhyme or reason; if you are prone to “down days” how do you keep the motivated, committed and believing when you’d rather pull the curtains and watch Homes Under the Hammer?

Pollyanna - let's play the glad game!

I am no Pollyanna despite how perky or practical I may come across as on here, the fact is that motivating yourself is easier on some days than on others. I make myself do something work related every day; research online, blogging, applying for jobs or just reading tweets that make me feel linked to my beloved industry. Without getting too “doctor-y” on you, exercise is vital not only to keep to my stated weight on my spotlight page (gulp!) but also to release endorphins. When I went through a small “black dog” phase a few years ago my doctor recommended exercise, vitamin B and bananas, going for a run or to the gym also gives you a reason to get out the house and a focus for your day. We all have down days but depression is a serious medical issue and we mustn’t confuse the two. Actors are notoriously needy and insecure, we have entered a profession where we literally are applauded if we do well so it’s no wonder we deflate if it is no longer there.

from www.weheartit.com
I dare you to be awesome today!

I can’t disregard Kamenetz’s research or medical studies and state “No, freelancers are quite jolly thank you very much, we may have irregular income but we deal with it and enjoy our freedom to spread our creative wings, so keep your Prozac,” because depression can affect anyone, from an actor to a Lawyer. But I do agree that the working world is evolving in every industry and perhaps we all need a bit of help to stay motivated. More people are becoming self-employed, working from home and being expected to answer emails 24 hours a day; the boundaries of an average working week are shifting. More actors are entering an industry where people cling to contracts like Ken Barlow to the cobbles and are having to create their own alternative opportunities to stay afloat. Things may sometimes be a challenge but stick on your favourite song, wiggle your bum and dance about and try not to let them get you down; and that applies to everyone, freelancers or not!