Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2022 - 23

and well-being and organizations had increased
profitability (2020).
It's
Prioritizing Health and Wellness
Relating WLBP to the technical week
of a theatrical production process is not
so clear cut. It is not an eight-hour job,
where employees can choose to stay and
continue to work or pack up and head
home, nor can they generally work remotely
during the tech process. Long
hours are often required to maximize
savings elsewhere, such as in days of
gear rentals or housing for out-of-town
artists and designers (Loar 2020). Using
the Equity CBA to dictate how long actors
can work serves to frame everyone
else's, normally longer, work schedule.
Bray et al. have suggested mindfulness
practices and positive disengagement
from work responsibilities as strategies
for managing burnout. But given the required
work hours, it is not clear how one
might achieve these.
By applying Shin and Enoh's theory, if
LORT theatres provided an on-site gym
and child care, the work experience of
theatre professionals would improve significantly,
even if those WLBPs weren't
used. But is that enough when the other
studies indicate that length of day has
specific and massive implications
for
well-being, and is one area that can be
changed?
In " Leading the Way in a PostPandemic
World, " stage manager Matt
Stern offers that stage managers might
use their traditional position as schedule
supervisor to present more sustainable
rehearsal schedule solutions. He presents
this as another opportunity for stage
management to advocate for the health
and safety of their company, which generally
falls under the purview of that position
(Stern, 2021). Loar believes that this
responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders
of the producers, but that everyone
needs to be advocating for these kinds of
scheduling changes. " Placing all the onus
on the lowest-level stage crew members
who have no institutional power is unfair
and unbalanced, but we need them to be
advocating, too, " asserts Loar (Interview,
2022).
Loar suggests changing the industry
standard to a five-day workweek where
no one person on a production would
be required to work more than five
days in a single week (Loar 2020). This
would certainly need to be addressed
in the seven-day pre-first performance
workweek allowed by Equity, as well as
with creative scheduling, using a rotating
staff if the work required more time
than five days allowed. Theatres such
as The Huntington in Boston, Indiana
Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis, and
the Wilma Theatre in Phildelphia have
moved to a five-day rehearsal week, while
Baltimore Center Stage and Shaking the
Tree Theatre in Portland Oregon, have
managed to have a five-day technical
week. This suggests that it can be done.
The time-people-money management
triangle would need to be better utilized
to ensure high-quality work is produced
(Smallwood 2020, 73).
There is no question that a shorter
workday is required for all of the
people in the room. But how does this
imperative
that health
and wellness
become
the priority
and that
financial
concerns
regarding
this change
be addressed
at the
beginning
of the
budgeting
process.
relate to the overall technical process?
Nomore10out0f12s.com lists 117 theatres
across the United States that have
changed their work hour practices. In
some cases, the 10 out of 12-hour days
have been shortened and reallocated
to another day; in others, the days have
been shortened with no reallocation (No
More 10 Out of 12s 2020). Bethany Ford,
director of production at The Huntington,
details a new tech process as moving to
a 10-hour workday, with the end of day
being 10 p.m., which she says, " feels so
humane, and even with a meeting after,
folks are out at a reasonable time. " At
The Huntington, the technical schedule
has expanded to include extra days, but
Ford says the production budgets haven't
changed significantly and there is less
expenditure for overtime. Detroit Public
Theatre's Producing Artistic Director
Courtney Burkett affirms that the production
quality appears to be stronger since
they moved to eight out of 10s, and productivity
was regularly lost in the final
two hours of a 12-hour tech day. This
sentiment was reiterated by a staff member
at American Repertory Theater in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Another interesting solution to come
out of theatres' responses to pandemic
programming involves the installation of
video and streaming equipment in theatre
houses. Bray described a progressive
solution during the USITT session on
TD Burnout. Because Theatre Squared
had installed streaming equipment in the
theatre for virtual programming, once
they were back to operating in person,
she was able to attend parts of the technical
process virtually from her home. She
was also able to attend the post-rehearsal
production meeting virtually.
Much like
the
current worldwide
concerns of economy versus well-being
and health, this becomes a question of
ethics and moral responsibility. It's imperative
that health and wellness become
the priority and that financial concerns
regarding this change be addressed at
the beginning of the budgeting process.
Loar's suggestion to rotate or stagger
people on a call could certainly work as
well if the labor is available. A theoretical
solution might be bringing in technical
staff to work only post-rehearsal to accomplish
daily notes in an overnight call.
This would require careful oversight of
the heads and assistant heads of these
SUMMER 2022 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 23
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