CBC did a really fantastic series a couple years ago, called Slings and Arrows, about a Shakespearean theatre company in Canada and its characters, problems, and vagaries. It’s brilliant, and if you get the chance to see it, do. One of the characters on it is Richard, the business manager of the company. He is the world’s worst judge of character, and there are moments when he’s an endearing, bumbling nincompoop, and others when he’s kind of the villain of the show. In one of the early episodes, he makes a comment to the artistic director about the director’s lack of business sense. He tells the director that for once he should think of the theatre as a business, because that’s what it is. The audience is supposed to sniff at so uncreative an attitude, for isn’t the play really the thing?
The truth, though, is that theatre- any theatre, be it professional, community, academic, or charitable- is in fact a business. Only in The Producers is the idea of staging a play for a loss a good idea (and that doesn’t work out so well either). For professional companies, of course, it’s most important to come in on the black, because that’s your paycheck, and that’s what pays the grocery bills. For community or academic theatre, it’s not about salaries, it’s about the longevity of the organisation. End up going into the red and you no longer have a company. So you have to run things with the same pragmatic, hardheaded business sense as any other organisation. Sometimes, yes, you can afford to take a small loss, secure in the knowledge that the season’s other productions will make up the difference. But you can never be certain of that, which is why, like any business, a percentage of your yearly budget needs to be maintained in case the entire year is a bust, in which case at least you’ve got something with which to retrench the next year. (Ask any business or financial expert about this: you always need a fund balance/slush fund.) And you do your damndest to make sure your losses are as small as possible. Unlike a professional company, you don’t have investors to take the hit. Go into the red and you’ve ruined the entire company forever. So, in some ways, you need to be even more careful than professional groups.
The trouble is that nobody seems to understand this.
You’ve already heard my rant about the current budget of our current disastrous production. Well, as of yesterday, there’s been a demand (and I use that word very intentionally) for another £200+. When informed that they were already more than a hundred overbudget on a show where the budget was astronomically generous, the threats, whines, and tantrums began. Threats to cancel the entire show. To take it to the cast so that they would stage a coup (which, actually, can’t really happen, given the paperwork involved). It was absolutely the most abusrd display of grade school politics and bullying you can imagine, from men who are in their mid thirties. Rachel is out of town, so she can’t do much here. Pragya very conveniently resigned as secretary last night. Which leaves Adrienne, the treasurer, to try to point out to unreasonable (and in one case, permanently intoxicated) individuals why asking money for a show they already acknowledge has to lose at least £300, is irrational, unreasonable, and irresponsible. (I suppose it’s interesting to note that the people who see it this way are the small cluster of us who have professional/semi-professional theatrical backgrounds. But it shouldn’t have to be. Logic is not the secret province of the professional, nor is amateur synonymous with stupidity.)
I’ve had a migraine since ten this morning, and I can only imagine what Adrienne’s going through. She and Rachel finally managed to touch base, and the money was eventually granted, with the rider that there is going to be a major and unpleasant debriefing after this show closes. But in spite of this, because of the personalities and lack of maturity on the part of the directors, I can almost guarantee they’re going to have a snit in front of the cast tonight. In which case I swear to god I am going to go off. Professionalism has been in the absolute pits this entire run, and this is just the last straw. Our final rehearsal Tuesday night was really good from a cast/acting standpoint, and an absolute disaster from our directors. I fully expect some choice words to be exchanged come Saturday night when it’s all over. James keeps offering to ‘accidentally’ point his sword at the wrong person during the run that night, and since he came rather close to a proper row with Fernando the other night at rehearsal, I’m not entirely sure he’s kidding, nor, at this point, am I tempted to say no. As it stands, I get to carry a sword in the play, and I might just beat him to it. (None of the weapons are live, but a few pounds of tempered steel can still do a good bit of damage, especially when you factor in the livid rage factor. And I am. Livid, that is.)
All of my life, I’ve heard myself saying things like, ‘Am I the only one who has any common sense?’ In this case, thank god, I’m not. I’ve got Adrienne and the Jameses in the same boat of seething annoyance, and I suspect that, where the rest of the cast aware of all the facts, they would at least see the practicality of the situation. Because of the queer social politics this year, the MAs haven’t integrated with the veterans, so they don’t know what our running budget is, or what precedents exist (like directors eating the overage- Jon and I did it happily with Apollonius, and we came in solidly in the profit margin- Jeremy keeps whining that no spring show has ever made money, but I know damn well that’s not true). (I should add that Lords offered to give us the money we’d spent overbudget,since it was only about £50. We declined- we fully intended to make the point that since we decided to spend the money, we were willing to take responsibility for doing so.) But even if there are a lot of people in Lords who probably can see reason, the ones who don’t boggle my mind. How do you get to be thirtysomething and not understand basic fiscal responsibility? Or responsibility at all?
I hope the play will be brilliant, in spite of its incredibly rocky birthing process. I hope we have fun. And I hope I don’t somehow trip while carrying my sword at an eye-stabbing angle, just because, you know, sometimes I’m uncoordinated like that. Especially around people who are rude and insulting to my best friend, and who have no respect for the things I hold dear.
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