WOMEN IN THEATRE

Convener: Vicky Graham

Participants: not noted, but included: Sarah Dickenson, Rebecca Manson-Jones, Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, Dan Baker, Rajni Shah, Holly Roughan, Marie Solene, Stella Duffy, Lynn Cordy, Lizzie Crarer, Bethany Pitts, Sue Emmas, Lyn Gardner

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

 

Following on from the formation of new theatre company Agent 160, its first tour, and Lyn Gardner’s Guardian article on sexism in theatre this week, we asked:

-       Are there women on top?

-       How do we ensure that the astonishing young women in theatre today are still there in 10, 20 or 50 years’ time?

Discussion:

-       Sphinx has data on this, available on their website. They’re hosting a conference at West Yorkshire Playhouse on March 2^nd.

-       Stella Duffy commented that although it has been decades since she started out, with confidence that the climate would change, very little has

-       Women are still referred to as a minority.

-       Opinions divided as to whether women are in fact on top

-       Drama schools have been known to admit majority men according to jobs available, not reflecting 52% female population and talent

-       There are more male roles on screen

-       Scandinavian culture has created more female-led successes (e.g. Borgen, The Killing)

-       Motherhood and childcare requirements make careers difficult to sustain – the industry doesn’t allow for these

-       As creative people, we should be creative and change our working models, e.g. welcoming children into the rehearsal space. The fear is that the industry will default to easier working models – ie. men in charge

-       It’s difficult to square the circle between being a parent and being an artist, but as artists we should come up with creative solutions and “be the change we want to see”.

-       Many examples of excellent female role models and leaders, including Vicky Featherstone, Erica Whyman

-       Feeling was that organisations (especially mainstream) aren’t producing enough female work, e.g. Donmar, Hampstead, Bush seasons have little / no work by women

-       Should it be the duty of women on top to ensure opportunities for next generation of women?

-       Women should be able to be artists in their own write, not just “female artists”

-       It was noted that 10 minutes in to the session, there was only one man present

-       Sisters have to do it for themselves!

-       A call to make conscious decisions in programming – a lot of the problems are down to unconscious choices

-       Female writers aren’t part of the canon

-       We need to see more female writers on syllabus and in schools

-       Growing up, women’s work is equated with a feminist political agenda. What if you don’t want to be political? Will this change for the next generation?

-       Why do people want 30% participation for women, and not 52%?

-       Some organisations operate blind script reading policies – see Lyn Gardner’s article and Bruntwood prize

-       Implications of gendered language discussed. We don’t say “he’s a male director” or a “career man”. Why do we / should we say that for women?

-       Concern about the lack of continuity and support for women’s second and third plays

-       We didn’t have feminism – we jumped straight into post-feminism

-       “This isn’t just about the arts, we need to change the whole fucking thing!”

-       Anecdotes about the aspirations of a group of young producers: all men wanted to be Nick Starr, the women just wanted a job

-       We need to work on women’s lack of a sense of entitlement and audacity, which is endemic in society

-       We all have to be the change we want to see, and do it from our own position, e.g. programming women’s work, only mentoring women and making conscious choices every time

-       The importance of women looking after other women

-       At one drama school, of 10 directing students, there’s only 1 woman. The boys are confident, where as the 1 woman isn’t able to say she’s a director yet

-       In Canada, positive discrimination in education pushed so far that boys underperformed in schools. There’s now a counter drive to address that.

-       Do women help other women enough? Some are territorial, which is endorsed by society.

-       Should a female artistic director programme work by women even if it’s not as good as the male work? The question should actually be “what can we do to ensure that women’s work is as good?”

-       We have to talk about a different kind of leadership, and different types of success

-       85% of audiences outside of London are women, who want work with a strong message

-       It’s important to have sell-able plays, and some think women’s work is harder to sell

-       There’s a tension between programming what people want and educating their taste

-       There’s an idea that work about women is only for women – e.g. if a woman writes a family story it’s a “domestic drama”, whereas if Mike Leigh writes it, it’s “universal”

-       Value and sell-ability: does our society value fun enough? It doesn’t all have to be political. It can be Mamma Mia – all women: producer, writer, director

-       We shouldn’t apologise when work is being made about women, for women. It’s not a dirty word / concept.

-       Why aren’t men involved in the feminist debate?

Wo-Manifesto(a):

-       Blind submission policies

-       Conscious choices about who we work with

-       Being conscious of our working styles and practices, shifting them if necessary to accommodate different needs

-       Diversity in panels / people evaluating work

-       It’s everyone’s responsibility to back women – men’s as well as women’s

-       Being sensitive to everyone in the conversation, but still getting the work done

-       Evolving our working models

-       Celebrating really great work by women and their achievements

-       Starting young and starting messaging with tiny tots

-       Being aware that we need to support women at different stages of their career - not just at the start

-       Not being afraid to challenge stereotyped gender roles in popular culture. E.g. panto

-       Compulsory female mentors for all senior men in theatre

-       Compulsory male mentors for women in theatre

-       Ensuring feminism is NOT a dirty word

-       Next time we choose a play to see, choose something made by women

Women and money:

-       In publishing, men are paid more

-       Nationally, women earn 10% less than men in equivalent roles

-       Women don’t ask

-       Need for consciousness-raising groups so that women know what they’re worth

Positive examples of all-female plays

-       House of Bernard Alba and Playhouse Creatures

-       Tim Crouch’s Taming of the Shrew

Conversations to be continued:

-       Gatekeepers: why do they make the decisions they make?

-       Female narratives and role models when working with young people

 

This message added at the end of the report:

ANYONE FOR FEMINISM/CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING/DRINKS/CHAT/CAKE/SHARING…

Email me via Improbable and I’ll make it :)

MEN WELCOME!!!

(lets do it out of London too!!)

Stella x

Living off your art

Convener: George Mann

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Following the session "How can artists run good businesses that earn them a living and are sustainable?" held on the 25 February 2012 I changed the name of this follow up ‘action’ session to the above.

Core Issues?

I began the session asking to identify the ‘core issues’ that make it difficult for artists to run successful businesses and make a living in order to get the ball rolling, they were deemed to be:

1.     State of Mind

-Young professionals finding it hard to ask to be paid and finding themselves in cycle of unpaid work that’s difficult to escape –like attracting like…  they feel unprepared when leaving education and that there’s no support. Doubt as to just how true this is, we collected more info about organisations, books, etc that offer help. See below…

-Business is a dirty word: it was felt that many find it difficult to accept that making a living off your art involves business, and prefer to think of it differently, some even to deny the fact –but we agreed it shouldn’t be like this.

-The myth of the poor artist and that this is the way it should be, a romanticised way of life (when in fact many professional artists in many professions are highly successful and comfortable financially or, quite frankly, rich).

The three ‘issues’ identified above are considered to be part of the problem facing artists and perhaps behind the statistic 50-75% of artists end up leaving the profession after five years because they cannot make a living.

2.     Education

-There are not many well-known organisations offering support to artists running self employed / company businesses providing training in business management, or access to different business models available. This point, it was argued, is not entirely true, there are many orgs out there, ITC for example, but perhaps we haven’t done the research to find out? Or perhaps they’re not well known enough.

-Uni’s and drama schools etc., can do more to prepare –educate – guide their students towards the information we’ve discussed and collected through these two sessions. Only one or two actually do this for their students.

-It was felt that although some know about business help –courses, training, info such as books, access to the help mentioned above requires money and although we recognise the above cannot be run/produced for ‘free’, we agreed that they were expensive, more so for students.

-Can the ACE help make this type of training affordable?

-Someone points out that if artists were trained to run businesses properly, efficiently, well, that this would help art thrive. Business can help art thrive, it needn’t be a dirty word or concept.

3.     Lack of protection for companies and artists from bad conduct.

-Theatre’s misbehaving, i.e. not adhering to contractual agreements on marketing support, for example, letting down companies and artists…

-Artists and companies feel vulnerable to political consequences if they voice their concerns about misconduct they’ve experienced in their dealings with theatres –such as repeated bad practice of not putting up posters/flyers etc. For example, by voicing their concern, they may find themselves unable to book tour dates at said venue in the future…

-Artists, it was felt, should come together to support each other, so that concerns and reports of bad conduct can be aired and backed up by the community, this way theatres cannot so easily ‘misbehave’ knowing that there would be consequences, that other people would find out.

-Can ACE do anything to make sure theatres that they fund are doing a good job? We say this knowing that they’ve recently suffered massive cuts, so where these people would come from is anyone’s guess…

What Can We Do?

Talking is all very well, but really, what can we do, what difference can we make, how can we change the status quo?

We felt there were two ways of doing something about this:

1.     Communication

There is a severe lack of communication about how artists can run their businesses, be they self employed, or wanting to establish a company, and if this was improved then artists would know what is out there, and how to find it –as there is stuff out there, even if it’s not ideal…

2.     Promote learning/education

…About how artists entering the industry can run their businesses, successfully. This involves uni’s, drama schools, the ACE, ITC –they could all do more, work together, to help make the arts thrive through good business management.

How can we encourage drama schools/uni’s to make sure they properly prepare their students before leaving their institutions, to lessen the shock of the ‘real world’ to provide access to and guidance about making a living off your art?

The two, communication and promote learning/education kind of sit together, and practically we felt the next steps could be:

Website/Webpage

There needs to be a site or page, perhaps on the new D&D website (?), that becomes well known, a place artists know about and direct other artists who are starting up or who need business guidance.

A forum?

Perhaps on the abovementioned site/page to ask questions openly to a membership (free) and community of artists who can reply, like a notice board.

Create a D&D Satellite

To raise this issue with people in the arts who have influence and can actually bring about change, high profile critics such as Lyn Gardner, ACE representatives, MPs in the cultural department, Business school reps, ITC reps, Equity reps, BECTU reps, drama schools/uni reps with and without business prep courses, life coaches, Princes Trust, Venues and Theatres and Festivals, etc. Put these issues to them and see what could be done practically, make them give a s**t about it, see it’s importance.

Partner ITC with ACE?

Encourage a dialogue and partnership between organisations such as the ACE and ITC who could make training courses of this nature more affordable and available to artists who need it, be they start-ups or well established artists needing a helping hand.

Who will do this?

I acknowledged along with many others that I don’t have the time nor money to really take on the above tasks, but that there are people out there, the influential people we mention above, who could include these tasks as part of their job description and could be better placed to make a difference.

So we have concluded that what is most important at this stage is:

Organising a satellite D&D to get the right people together, and

Getting this info, which in itself is helpful and a good start up on the D&D website –a place, a forum, a community that exists already and continues to grow.

The right people need to do this

Tips, advice, organisations, & comments that came out of the above discussion:

Helpful Organisations Online:

Creative choices: help with developing your career in the arts, fantastic stuff to help you here…

http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/

Free Cycle can help you acquire set, props and costume for free: a grassroots movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns.

http://uk.freecycle.org/

CIDA: If you’re a creative individual, business or arts organisation looking for support to take your creative business or project further, you’ll find it here, whatever stage you’re at.

http://www.cida.co.uk/

Heads for Business: To bring together the top leaders of today and tomorrow to create a better, more sustainable world through the positive power of business.

http://www.sife.org/Pages/default.aspx

PANDA ARTS: PANDA’s mission is to proactively support a vibrant enterprise culture by nurturing talent, creating connections and providing an authoritative voice for the performing arts sector. PANDA supports 
Anyone working, or aspiring to work, within the performing arts sector within the NW and neighbouring regions. http://www.panda-arts.org.uk/#

Arts Council: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/

Arts Oracle: http://www.artsoracle.com/

Helpful Books:

Screw Work Let’s Play – John Williams (not Spielberg favorite composer)

Sales on a beer mat – Mike Southon

So you wana be a theatre producer – James Seabright

Comments/Thoughts:

From Tanja Raaste:

I attach the info on the course I'm running at Blue Elephant through 2012. Thank you for putting up the info onto your new blog.  Do send me the link when it's up, and I'll feature it on my resources page (which is still under construction:  click here )

Another resource you might want to put a link to is my newsletter (see links below my signature below) - the newsletter mainly deals with arts business issues – you can have a flick through the past issues (link below).

Kind regards,

Tanja

Tanja Raaste

07980 619 165

www.nordicnomad.com 

Business Skills for Artists – new course at the Blue Elephant Theatre.  Details here.

Sign up to the monthly Nordic Nomad Newsletter here.  For past issues - click here.

-Actors agents, although work for some, also help distance actors/artists from the reality of business and of money, this can lead to difficult situations, feelings of powerlessness and in rare cases corruption. It’s good that actors know this is not the only route…

-Artists can apply for working tax credit, did you know this?

-Perhaps the current trend of arts businesses being charities and not-for-profit orgs puts pressure on others to follow suit when in fact their business model does not suit this? Again, is it wrong to make a profit? Is it wrong to want to make a living, buy a house one day, be comfortable as an artist…? This probably adds to the perception of the poor artists myth, and the moral stance some take in believing that business is a dirty word in the arts.

-Business is a creative ‘thing’, it can be exciting to run your own arts business

-Business and art engage two different parts of the brain, which is a challenge but also helps us separate and not mix the two where they shouldn’t be mixed.

-There’s an inherent violence and difficulty in the arts, it’s not easy, it is hard work, and no amount of education and guidance will change this fact.

-EVERYTHING is negotiable, no doesn’t always mean no

-Can ACE do things with Uni’s and Drama Schools AND ITC, pairing, arts management courses in conjunction with…?

-NPO’s are not obliged but they are encouraged to mentor and help other artists with their own businesses/companies

-Can someone create a list of willing venues who would help artists, mentor them?

 http://devotedanddisgruntled7.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-can-artists-run-good-businesses.html

Another useful resource:

26 March: Starting a Performing Arts Company

Former Director of ITC, Mary Loughran leads this fascinating and exciting one day course, providing an overview of the essential skills required for setting up and running a performing arts company.

10am - 5pm at the Albany. 

For more info you can check the ITC website: www.itc-arts.org

 

I want (to make?) a project which pays people to make connections and come up with ideas

Convener: Bridget Floyer

Participants: Dan Baker, Zoe Cobb, Aliki ?

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

Not many people came to my session and I still can’t decide whether that means it’s a bad idea, not needed, too good to be true (I did choose Utopia as my location) or whether I just worded it badly. Certainly there feels like there is a lot of context I struggled to get into my punchy title. I probably could have (there have been other conversations about what we can and can’t do this weekend) but didn’t manage to.

My idea came from several observations verging together about which I also still haven’t quite decided whether they come together meaningfully or not.

• Trying to make work independently for the first time aged 32 feels difficult. Lots of schemes which help people are for those under 25 or under 30.  I think my experience of working for organizations for the last 10 years is helpful but I don’t think it makes it SO much easier that I don’t still need (want?) help! And there are others for whom this will be so much more true
• Even development funding needs a strong idea – a  creative idea and an idea of key people you want to work with. This takes time, energy and often money, and until you have an established organization this usually means doing this unpaid
• An article in the Guardian about how many old Etonian actors there are
• Feels to me like there is a gap between being encouraged to get involved in the arts as a young person and being able to move into employment. Audiences and workforces in mainstream theatre are not getting bigger or more diverse. I don’t think anything will change until we genuinely empower people from more diverse (culturally/socio-economically and otherwise?) backgrounds and that means giving equal employment opportunities. If people can’t afford to do the frequently unpaid schemes which are on offer and they need to get experience to get paid jobs then that is very exclusionary – equally if they can’t afford to give the time energy and money to coming up with ideas they’ll struggle to get started independently

My idea is to have an intensive scheme that brings people together maybe for just a week to have time to work on ideas and have time to work practically with other people, and help them get to a place where they have experience and maybe ideas to move forward on. Mentoring could also be involved.

This would have an emphasis on process over product though I was imagining some form of sharing.

There doesn’t seem to be such a scheme (though China Plate? does seem to operate a scheme slightly similar for devising companies to have paid time with new writers) so I want to try and make one.

Ideally I’d like this to help people from a variety of disciplines – producers, actors, directors, designers, writers, other artists. Everyone should be paid but as equally as possible.

My questions

• Who owns the idea afterwards if you bring different people together
• What’s the role of the producers in that space?
• Who gets involved / who really needs it / how do you make sure those people are the ones who get involved
• Will anyone fund it? (I reckon it could be done for £25k (or smaller and cheaper) if space and some other venue-type support was in-kind)
• Who decides who takes part – do I have the expertise/experience to choose?

PREAMBLE OVER: BELOW ARE THE RESULTS OF THE SESSION

As already mentioned, one piece of feedback was the lack of people at my session.

I spoke to three people, one other producer and two artists. Both artists agreed this would be useful and that they have ideas which they need help to get off the ground. This seemed to be partly about them needing a producer (and a producer that doesn’t need to be paid until the idea has mileage) and partly about a desire to collaborate and work ideas through.

Won’t be able to note whole conversations but these were key things for me:

Dan and I talked about how it would be important for it not to be too restrictive with too many conditions or caveats. We said both that there must be loads of empty spaces around but also that space really seems to be at a premium (I have seen various possibilities for space during DandD so that’s been interesting)

Zoe mentioned lots of things that would be helpful that I hadn’t even thought of (as I had a practical workshop style thing in mind) eg phone, computer, wifi, conversations, planning and strategy sessions, advice on what makes a show workable etc as well as practically trying out ideas.

This was good because it slightly answered my question as to what the producers might do in that space without becoming glorified stage managers. I felt strongly they should be involved (ha, of course, as I'm a producer!) as that feels like an important relationship to allow people to create as well as artist to artist relationships.

I also realised during discussions that ideas can take a long time to develop and maybe my thought that ideas could be come up with during the session is overambitious. Aliki and I talked about how lots of artists will have an idea but they may be unformed and not in a state that’s fundable. Maybe I should be looking for artists who have ideas they want to bring in to explore.

Another thought that came out was not to have to know answers was positive – to have a space for trials, where a sharing was the ideal end result but not necessarily performance, not audience focused and that the possibility of no sharing at all was an option

I was also assuming a theatre venue was the space I was looking for but other spaces could be a possibility especially if a performance (even a scratch one) is not going to be a necessary end result of the project. Even scratch performances are quite formal in a sense if they’re in a theatre space so maybe more beneficial not to be.

OTHER THOUGHTS WHICH DIDN’T COME OUT OF THIS SESSION BUT OUT OF OTHERS

I’ve been interested in who leads with an idea and I went to some sessions about post-dramatic drama and design-led theatre which all questioned who can lead a process. I’d be interested in having people come in with ideas who are not directors.

Piloting would be a good idea and this could be possible in a much smaller way than I was originally thinking I’d want to pilot. Maybe one group made up of one artist with an idea and others in a venue which has very close links to a diverse community and could bring in emerging artists (of any age) to see how the week itself works and what’s useful before looking at the wider format of applications etc

In fact not having applications per se in an open way but referrals might get the “right people” – or even better a mix, not to ghettoise?

Might be useful to bring in some established artists who might not need the project so much but benefit from reinvigoration of practice from working with new people or having a test space for an idea (or working on someone else’s idea) and again meet less ghettoisation, more useful for emerging artists to meet a mix of people.

Would it then be even more important that everyone gets paid and everyone gets paid the same?

Seth Honnor (hope he doesn’t mind me quoting) said creative practice is a constant tension between openness and quality and though I need to think about that a bit more, I think that’s a good context in which to set the above – have some known quality and some unknown openness (which doesn’t mean either isn’t risky but to different degrees?)

Again possibilities for space came from other sessions eg the Theatre Lab session about people in Streatham Hill (music project, aaaaagh have temporarily lost email address sorry) who have space and want to encourage use of it for artistic collaboration and no-one came to that session either – interesting!

If anyone is post-DandD interested in this or can offer help for me to do it (I’m determined to try) I can be found on Twitter @bridget_flo or at http://anoccasionalwildgoose.blogspot.com which is a slightly rambling blog about theatre and finding 100 things to love about London but you can contact me through it.