What 'Reality Shows' us - thoughts on The Voice

Whose Twitter feed or Sunday paper wasn’t buzzing with comments about BBC’s The Voice final this weekend?  The coveted Saturday night entertainment slot was filled once again with budding singers; less “singing for their supper” and more “singing during mine.”  Thousands of contestants had been whittled down to only 4 by celebrity judges and were competing for a record deal.

As I have previously stated, nay shouted, on this blog – I am not a huge fan of reality TV especially when it infringes onto the theatre industry.  (Here are my thoughts last year on the search for Jesus on The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniella-gibb/jesus-christ-superstar-is-coming-_b_1649164.html ) But I have relaxed my past opinions after supporting some colleagues and watching friends navigate this new terrain.  I detest the producers, hosts, judges and morals of these shows but I truly admire the courage and skill of the contestants.

They sing live every week and leave themselves open to opinion and ridicule.  On a slow news week they could be plastered over a weekend tabloid without any experience in how to deal with the gutter press.  I can’t handle the internet forums where people post “informed opinions” on West End performers’ talent and have panic attacks of self doubt before going on for an understudy - so I would not be a happy contender.  I just don’t have the bottle.

The reality of these ‘reality shows’ is that it is now a viable way to pursue your dreams.  It may not be an option for us all – but for those with self-belief and determination, why not put yourself out there?  Ernest Hemingway said to his son,

“You make your own luck...You know what makes a good loser?  Practice.”

And I have come to think that maybe waiting for the right audition, big break or practising hard may not be enough.  Self-promotion is part of our job but there is a fine line between maintaining an online presence and ‘tweeting’ clips of you singing “On My Own” to Trevor Jackson.  If you don’t want to sit in the ensemble for the rest of your life, how do you get to the big time when that the “working your way up” route is obsolete? 

People always say that success in this industry boils down to luck (along with a little talent and having a casting director for a Mum) but ultimately you need luck on your side.  But should you wait for it or go out and snatch it?  

Genuine voice -  genuine man

Having worked with the wonderful Matt Henry (The Voice finalist 2013) for the majority of last year, we all said how insanely talented he was and wished we could hear him sing something other than ‘Schadenfreude’ (although it was awesome!)  He went for it and look what happened?!  He is gigging, will get record deals and if he ever comes back to us folk in the West End, casting directors will be asking for him not putting him through a dance call at Dance Attic.

We’ve seen the success of reality show contestants such as the lovely Daniel Boys, Lee Mead, Connie Fisher and Samantha Barks (anyone heard of her??!) – these shows do open doors that our usual careers won’t allow.  I have shared dressing-rooms and stages with many uber-talented people who have dreamt of landing lead roles or record deals, but these stay aspirations.  The sad fact is that nowadays you need to gain notoriety before attaining these dreams.  People need to have heard of you if they are going to part with £70 to hear you sing.  Do we need to think outside the box and move with the times?

Like I said, this reality cannot be for everybody.  It certainly isn’t an option for me – whether it’s through lack of talent, bravery or just having a face for radio rather than TV.  But the lesson behind the glitz and glamour seems valid – only you can make your dreams happen (and perhaps sometimes you have to go out on a limb and sing on the telly to do it.) 

And I think I can safely say on behalf of the Avenue Q lot, “Matt, we are so proud of you.”

"Here's your keys!" - to your new beginning

I'm ready for my close up - auditioning for movie musicals

Every time I have an audition for a film, I find myself having to go in the slot after the same West End starlet.  It happened again this week.

Lights, camera, aaaaaaargh!

Let me back track for a sec and give you some context; firstly, I say ‘every time’ but I have only ever had 2 film auditions, both for musicals.  You see, I am so deeply entrenched in the musical theatre casting bracket that I've never had an audition for a TV series, Casualty or even Doctors (I know, anyone who even thinks about being an actor has appeared in Doctors.)  So although auditioning for films may be an average day for some actors, for me it is the ‘once in a blue moon’ exciting opportunity that makes me feel unprepared for the unknown.

But both times I have had to follow the audition of this West End starlet who is both highly successful and highly lovely.  Both her height and her credentials dwarf me, so I can’t help but feel like the unknown support act coming on after the main event. At normal auditions you see your peers at similar places in your careers, but both times I have been at these film auditions I have been surrounded by the West End elite and I am sure my presence is some kind of admin error.

A first-round audition is fairly similar for both stage and screen musicals, you sing at a panel of strangers.  One difference is that for stage you often have to bring your own material and in my ‘huge experience’ of movie castings (yep, I totally say that in a L.A accent) you are given material from the project.  Oh, and there is a camera aimed at your face.

My face fits nicely in the theatrical world; I can never disguise what I am thinking and my eyebrows have a life of their own.  My expressions are large, animated and can be read “from the gods!”  But what works in a West End chorus line translates on screen as somebody “gurn-ing” and probably on some kind of amphetamine.   

I am ready for my close-up......what do ya mean you don't want it?

In my audition for the Les Miserables movie, Tom Hooper asked for the “Lovely Ladies” section but trimmed right back to just show the intention in our eyes.  For those of you who’ve seen the show, you will know that the lovely ladies are highly grotesque and animated.  We are told to be like broken dolls with loads of arm movements to create spiky pictures.  So I needed some kind of theatrical strait-jacket for the audition as my muscle memory kicked in and my arms wanted to repeatedly leap forwards in grand gestures!

My audition this week was for an upcoming musical film adaptation and again I was called in for a grotesque and larger than life character.  (Yes, I have noticed the theme here and I am fully aware that my 'pretty juvenile lead' days are over, sob!)  Anyway, this was my challenge; did I go in and give a naturalistic performance suggesting my mean-ness from my eyes?  Or should I go for it, knowing that even on screen this character would have to be fairly grotesque.  Or a non-committal blend of the two - mean eyes and the odd arm flap?  I have no idea what I actually did because I was in and out quicker than a Donmar Warehouse season sells out.  Suddenly I was back in the waiting room wondering what on earth just happened!  

My barbie's legs fell off when I attempted the box splits,
 it ain't right!

And while I’m talking about the waiting room - just a quick final thought; – why oh why do casting directors insist on making mere mortal actors audition in dance studios?  Auditioning after the starlet is demoralising enough but to be surrounded by leotard-clad dancers who are nonchalantly chatting whilst sitting in the box splits, makes you want to leap out of the nearest window. 

As if auditions aren’t traumatic enough!

Reality Check - When the bubble bursts

I had lunch with one of my “normal” friends the other day, you tknow those 9-5 people who have a 2 day weekend, have managed to achieve house ownership and don’t count out their pennies for a box of teabags.  One of the perks of “resting” at the moment is that I have lots of free time to see these wonderful people who often disappear from my life when I’m embroiled in an acting contract.  We even got to meet on a Saturday afternoon, when my body clock suggests I should be on a train heading to a vocal warm-up but instead I was in my home town, having a normal life with normal friends and having a right ol’ laff!  Bliss.

It is not often I’m able to advise my friends on work-related issues because our working worlds are so different – my knowledge of Anthony Van Laast’s choreography for some reason doesn’t lend itself to the corporate ladder.  But on this occasion my friend was having a tough time adjusting to being back home after a short contract abroad.  The phrases about her “new colleagues soon becoming like family” and being in “her own little world” rang very true and my actress-self recognised those feelings of dislocation when you suddenly find yourself landed back into reality after a trip away.

When actors are doing a job, whether in town or on tour, you do create a world for yourselves.  Your dressing-room buddies very swiftly become best-mates and the routine becomes your reality.  You become embroiled in the day-to-day dramas and your outside world can get forgotten.  This is even more the case when you are on tour; being away from normality forces you to make a ‘new normal’ for yourself, re-creating friends and family from your new cast mates.  Everything is heightened, from emotions to relationships, and you surround yourself with this new normal as a way of dealing with being away from home.  I wrote a blog last year about relationships and affairs on tour inspired by intense circumstances that can make them come about.  http://daniellagibb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/read-all-about-it-what-goes-on-tour.html

It doesn’t affect everyone but it can so easily happen.  The phrases “what goes on tour stays on tour” and “the tour bubble” came about because you really are in a bubble; a pretty, colourful membrane surrounding your reality, floating around without responsibility or worries that once it’s popped has gone forever.

A contract is a really special time, in part because of this bubble and because it is a rest away from being a real actor i.e. unemployed and anxiously waiting for something, anything.  Although my friend hasn’t come home to unemployment, her bubble has burst and she is trying to re-assemble her old reality whilst missing that protective bubble of care-free fun.  It is confusing, un-settling and makes you prone to rose-tinted glasses nostalgia.  The same transition happens when it's the other way round.  In acting your world can change in an instant - a friend this week got cast in a Bill Kenwright musical (cue groans of recognition from theatre folk) and within 3 days he had to start the new job.  Commitments re-arranged, life packed up and thrust into a new existence.

It is weird when your bubble bursts – you land back into the world you left and everyone else has been carrying on without you.  They don’t fully comprehend those “you had to be there” moments because the experience didn’t happen to them.  Is it possible to fit back in?  Well of course so, you may not be exactly the same person you were when you left but no-one changes that much.   There is a reason why people cannot live in bubbles all of the time – just look at Glinda in Wicked!  

An uber-talented West End leading man once said to me as I bemoaned not being able to live in New York after coming back from an exhilarating trip “but the reality is you couldn’t live in the shiny bit of Manhattan and you’d end up on the outskirts still having to pay your water bill.”  The fact that he was telling me whilst dressed in the famous long coat and hat of Javert and I was the 23 year old starry-eyed street urchin somehow made this life reality more poignant in our make believe world.  He had lived it and done it and despite still wearing the hat and coat at night he was aware of the joys of a real life during the day.  He knew that bubbles are transparent and that you can always see the outside world from within them.  I’ll never forget that lesson.

Remember how much you loved bubbles as a kid?  How magic was it that they just appeared as you shouted “again, again” to an adult slowing going purple from the constant puffing! A life without bubbles is bland and boring and we need to enjoy those colourful orbs when they choose to decorate our skies.  Their ability to pop at any moment enhances their beauty because we look forward to their return.  If we had them all the time they would become mundane and we’d be coughing up soapy water.

OK, enough of the drawn out metaphors, you get my point!  Enjoy the great touring experiences or breaks away from your day to day life and accept the few weeks discomfort when you try to fit back in.  Because you have to come back, otherwise you’ll just be a person in a frilly frock singing top C’s floating around in a bubble and that can be quite a lonely experience if you’re stuck up there forever.

Angelina Jolie - are you a battler or a bawler?

I often try to rationalise and find the light in a situation, especially on here when trying to paint a positive way of dealing with the industry.  But sometimes I am unable to muse and meander my way out a bad day.  And I just cry.

Yesterday I received a gas and electricity bill the size of Greece’s national debt, got a ‘No’ from a fringe play I had auditioned for (I couldn’t afford to do it, especially after daring to use my central heating during the endless winter, but you still want to be asked!) and a ‘No’ from West End musical Matilda - you know those days when it all comes at once?  I was mostly upset because I hadn’t even been given the chance to sing for Matilda but that’s another reminder that casting directors hold the strings to your life.  Foolish me to think I had some kind of control.

But then I wake up this morning to the surprising piece in the New York Times by Angelina Jolie admitting she has had a double mastectomy to reduce her chance of contracting breast cancer from 87% to only 5% - a woman taking control of her own life.  I have read reaction articles citing it’s easy for a millionaire to be privy to such preventative measures especially when you have Brad Pitt stroking your hair, but surely the act of deciding to do something to fight is just a human reaction.  Yes money will help, but it was a personal decision that she now hopes, by going public, will do some good.  Knowing that preventative treatment is an option may provoke others to be as pro-active and positive instead of feeling defeated.

So not only did an article about family and cancer give me that good old jolt of perspective, we actors love a bit of self-indulgence, but it also got me thinking about how differently we can react to life’s problems.  Having a weep when sat on the steps of my teaching job because I couldn’t jump around on stage is utterly ridiculous despite it feeling relative to my world on that day.  I am sure Angelina had a little cry and moments of concern during her operations but she doesn’t choose to share those personal moments of weakness, instead she opts to inspire and inform.  No-one is an emotional robot; I truly believe it is better to actively work towards a solution instead of wallowing in your misery but I do think it’s healthy to have an emotional release now and again.  It can literally wash out the negativity and leave you free to see clearly.

A 90s reference for the ultimate self-indulgence!

Sometimes you need to be sad, have a good wail and let it all out and other times you need to steel yourself and be pro-active.  Battle your way through the crap.  Perhaps life just has two sorts of people – the 'battlers' and the 'bawlers'.  But I’d like to hope that we have the capacity to be both.

As an actor I am drawn towards being a ‘bawler’, my excuse is that we need to have our emotions on the surface and accessible at all times!  But because I am lucky enough to be surrounded by pro-active do-ers and reality-check folk, my boyfriend and family soon point me towards the ‘battler’ way.

Everybody has bad days, even gorgeous film stars, but sometimes within the gloom it’s worth remembering some perspective.  I’m not saying this to make us feel guilty about our genuine emotions – not in that “there are children dying in Africa” when you push aside your last fish finger, every child of the 80s had that one – but just to give the bawler in you a kick. 

So I intend to wipe my eyes and make a plan, if Lara Croft can do it so can I!

A Working Actor - my latest column for The Fourthwall Magazine

“Wow!  You don’t often find people your age who are still doing it!”  A young actor said to me recently.  Not doing shots of aftershock or excelling on the X-Box, but acting. 

At 31 years old I have made it through the ‘first cut,’ so to speak, in the lifelong audition that is the acting profession. I am not a highly successful star but a “working actress” who manages to pays the bills (sometimes) from acting.  I have avoided the post drama school career change, the desire for marriage and babies and finally the allure of a regular wage packet/mortgage prospects and am still ‘treading the boards.’  But will I make it to the finals?

Part of me hopes not.  I admit there have been times when watching my peers buy houses or successfully apply for car insurance that I have longed to not be an actress.  (Car insurance – why a self-employed actor makes insurers recoil in horror and whack on a further £300 to a premium, I don’t know?  It’s not as if I’m doing time-steps whilst parallel parking.*)  I have been making noises about changing my profession for a few years but every time I get a new qualification or Google “normal” jobs another great acting job comes along, I get sucked back in and reminded why this job is so brilliant.

Acting has become my job and like any other profession it has it’s politics, pressures and P45’s.  I have had to find a way of making it “work” for me as the “working actress,” in my life and on my terms, not just the terms of the casting directors who have the power to change my life in an instant.  As I have gotten older and started to understand the profession and myself, I haven’t wanted to drop everything because David Grindrod wants to see me at 3pm like I did 10 years ago.  I hate letting pre-made plans and people down and no-one can expect you to keep your week free and not earn any money on the off-chance of a phone call.  The industry is exciting, precarious and can be destructive if you let it and you need a jolly good map to navigate your way through this wonderful world.  One day I’m up and the next I’m proclaiming through tears and a glass of Merlot that I should become an estate agent; the well-coveted work/life balance written endlessly about in the media applies to us too, perhaps even more so.

So how do you manage to still write “actor” in the blank space beside job title 12 years after leaving drama school?  Well, it’s all about balance, sacrifice, support and shed loads of therapy.  I am, of course, joking about the therapy but it can help!

Learning to balance the importance you place on your career is a tough one.  I used to base my happiness on whether I was in or out of work; ecstatic and a joy to be around when in a contract then depressed and insecure when auditioning again.  With the beauty of hindsight I can now see that I was a ‘pain in the bum human mood-swing’ and I don’t blame countless ex-boyfriends for dumping me!  You can’t let having a job dictate your happiness or self-worth – if your life is ok on a day-to-day basis then doing a job you love is an added bonus. 

If your sole focus is career, CVs and achievements then you run the risk of missing what else life has to offer.  Relationships, family and friends can all fall by the wayside as you obsess over jobs but you will always need them there to remind you that there is more to life than speeches and Pippa Ailion.  They will be the ones to pick you up after your 7^th ‘NO’ of the week or who reminds you of your true self when basking in the light of success.  You can still have that blinkered focus of an aspiring thesp but it’s learning when to use it; so maybe try to balance out the nights out in the West End with a catch up with your old mate from home, it can be as good for you as a January detox.

Talking of home, this is where the sacrifice comes in.  No, not goats or altars but the life sacrifices required to sustain a career.  To play your dream role you may have to leave loved ones behind as you embark on tour with only a suitcase and sat-nav for company.  You also have to accept that you may miss out on birthdays, weddings and christenings as “normal” folk insist on hosting them on a Saturday night just as you start your 8^th show of the week.  I find this tough; I may have been doing a brilliant show but seeing my nephew’s 1^st birthday party via Facebook photos just isn’t the same.  I am far too sentimental to be an actress! 

At 24 years old I did two shows on Christmas Day; the Mamma Mia! International Tour happened to be in Berlin over the Christmas period and as Germany’s main celebrations are on December 24^th we had that day off and then performed two shows the following day whilst our families back home tucked into turkey, I think we were singing ‘Thank You for the Music’ as The Queen started her speech!  But it didn’t bother me.  There is nowhere more festive than Germany with all the Christmas Markets and Gluhwein with your fake-tanned mates also in their 20s, it was an incredible time.  But fast-forward to 30 years old when I couldn’t get home from York during a Pantomime run and I was distraught at the thought of missing my aging Grandfather, baby nephew and my Mum’s brussel sprouts.  This is a prime example of how you change as you get older and having to fit your career around your new priorities.

I have also had to accept that my life won’t take the expected pattern or route.  The plan of mortgage at 22,married at 24, babies at 27 and house in the country by 44 just ain’t gonna happen;  I got waylaid via musicals and self-assessment tax returns!  But it isn’t a bad thing.  I may not have savings or a pension but I do have memories of performing for the Queen, singing on a film set and seeing my family applaud through the lights of a West End theatre.  Who else can say they met their other half when I was Jill and he was Jack and we got married 47 times one December!  This unstable, nomadic lifestyle is exotic and appealing to your “normal” friends who have settled down.  I work from mouse-ridden dressing rooms but they see celebrity cast mates and applause whereas I see cosy family meals to their mortgage responsibilities and rows!  The grass is always greener.....

So do I regret plugging away at this acting malarkey for over a decade?  The sacrifices are worth it because that ‘acting bug’ is still there; there seems to be no treatment and despite my protestations, I may be terminal.  I may not get to the final act, especially as my 31 year old ovaries kick in, but I hope I can convince you that all your dreams and aspirations can come true.  It is possible get paid to do what you love and with just a bit adjustment and understanding to find the ‘happy ever after!’

You’ve experienced my first jobs with me in my column “Into The Profession”; jaunts at Edinburgh Festival, endless battles with auditions, achieving West End dreams and producing my own play.  But as The Fourthwall Magazine enters a new phase, so do I; this “working actress” is constantly navigating to find that Holy Grail called the work/life balance and although the nearest I am to finding it currently is in a performance of Spamalot, I am hopeful that it is possible.  I am still learning, dreaming, failing and will be until the day I retire, which as a self-employed thesp is not too far away from the final stop in the graveyard!  Over the next few columns I’ll confide my struggle with balancing two careers in writing and acting and trying to find work when ‘out-of-work.’  And please do let me know any questions you may have about the big bad world of performing and I’ll try to incorporate them into my columns, after all, in the wise words of Zac Efron in High School Musical, “We’re all in this together....!”

check out the brilliant Fourthwall Magazine at www.fourthwallmagazine.co.uk 

...and the obvious reason is because of the season!

What musically minded soul hasn’t been humming the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ ditty to themselves over the past few days “Oh the barnyard is busy in a regular tizzy...” all together now “It’s Spring, Spring, Spriiiiiiiiing!” 

We are all basking in the balmy sunshine feeling renewed and I feel I must apologise from distinct lack of blogging in recent weeks.

You see, I have been roosting like the birds tending to their nests outside of my window.  Co-habitation with my man since the beginning of the year has brought out all these weird homely qualities that we actresses normally only read about in scripts.  Previously, the nearest I have come to being a home-bird is playing one of the “homing pigeons, homing in,” in the Thenardier Inn scene in Les Mis so these changes in habit have come as a surprise to me.  My musings and meanderings have been concealed by planting bulbs and cooking meals for two.

But!  A recent teaching job at my old drama school shook me out of my housewife lull and reminded me why a career in theatre is so exciting.

Four days of teaching aspirational teenagers, who dream of being on the West End stage and are prepared to work their butts off to get there, got my inspiration blossoming like a spring flower in bud.  You remember how “cool” it actually is to have been in certain productions as people ‘Ooo’ and ‘Aaah’ in wonder as you teach them show choreography.  There is a certain breed of actor who is quick to dumb down their achievements, I sadly include myself in that camp, but I think it is better than the alternative - that actor who may as well write their CV on their forehead for all the bellowing on they do about it!

These students were incredible; eager to learn, humble and with a work ethic that shamed me.  Why when you become a professional do you suddenly rush out at lunchtime instead of stay behind and work on your harmonies with the MD?  When something becomes your job I’d say it is normal for it to become part of your routine without becoming complacent or taking it for granted.  I mean, it would be slightly daft and ultimately embarrassing if you spent every day at work telling your colleagues how “amazing” they are, that you saw them 8 times in Phantom and gushing about living the dream.  But why do we forget so easily the 16 year old dreamer who wanted nothing else than to walk through a stage door and into that unknown world?  

Of course there are always moments of “wow” and “how did I get here?”  - that’s how you know you’re not complacent or bitter but these students reminded me of those feelings of determination, blinkered vision and commitment.  And it was lovely to bask in their glow for a few days.

So as the season changes and we emerge from the eternal bleak mid-winter, so my love for my job has been renewed.  And a good thing too, as I have an audition tomorrow where I may need to harness that youthful energy to drag these old bones about in a dance call!

"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/