The Show Must Go On—but Before That, I Have Many Other Jobs

My solo show, Condemned to a Life, opens at the de Maat Theater in Chicago in a little over a week. A HUGE part of what no one will ever see is how much of the job has nothing to do with making the show.

I am rehearsing, revising, coordinating collaborators, renting the theater, managing the budget, writing grants, fundraising, updating and thanking donors, writing the playbill, contacting press, making promotional materials, inviting people individually, posting on social media, tracking ticket sales, and trying to convince people that this one show among the approximately eleven million things they could do in Chicago deserves their attention.

I am also promoting puppet workshops and writing medical articles to make money. I move between several professional identities every day, sometimes within the same hour, in an effort to sustain the artistic life I am trying to build.

I am not doing all of this entirely alone.

My director, Vishaal Desai, has taken on an extraordinary amount of behind-the-scenes work, far beyond what I expected or could reasonably have asked of him. The prop master and puppeteer have also contributed more time, attention, and care than their job descriptions—or their paychecks—could possibly capture.

I am paying my collaborators. But payment does not erase the fact that independent theater often runs on people giving more than they were hired to give because they believe in the work. We see this in teaching, nursing, farming, and plenty of other fields: entire systems learn to survive on people’s devotion.

And like many people working inside those systems, I do not have much leverage to refuse the terms or walk away. I am still trying to build a career. So I absorb the extra work, take the financial risk, and hope it eventually pays off.

I knew producing a show would be hard. I did not understand that working independently in theater would mean becoming the performer, producer, publicist, fundraiser, marketer, salesperson, administrator, and customer-service department—and then being gracious that a theater is willing to let me pay to use its room.

I am grateful to have a room.

I am also exhausted and certain that this model is not sustainable.

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And when the Chicago run is over, I get to do it all again when I bring the show to New York.

The festival in New York provided me with a list of media contacts, which is genuinely helpful. It has also offered me additional help in the form of advertising packages that I can pay for.

So, after paying to participate in the festival, paying to produce the show, paying collaborators, paying for travel, and assuming the financial risk of bringing the show to New York, I can pay more money for help telling people the show exists.

This is not unique to one festival or one theater. It seems to be the model.

Artists and their collaborators make the work. But the independent producer—often the artist—is still expected to assume nearly all of the financial risk and build the infrastructure around it.

The artist pays for access to the stage. Then the artist pays again for access to an audience.

I am not writing this only to complain about being busy. I chose to make this show. I am proud of it. I love the people working on it, and I believe deeply in what we are creating.

But I am starting to wonder what, exactly, we are asking artists and their collaborators to carry in order for the work to exist.

And yes, I am gathering preliminary research for an article pitch.

How much unpaid labor is considered a normal part of being a performer, director, designer, puppeteer, or producer? How many talented people stop making things because they cannot also become expert marketers, fundraisers, salespeople, publicists, and content creators? What responsibility should theaters, festivals, training centers, and other arts institutions have for helping artists reach audiences—not as a favor, but as part of the ecosystem that allows live performance to survive?

Because right now, the solution seems to be that every artist should become an endlessly available entrepreneur: branding, selling, posting, pitching, fundraising, following up, writing thank-you notes, and converting every human relationship into a possible ticket sale.

One person cannot do all of that well. One person probably cannot do all of that badly without eventually falling apart.

I do not have a solution yet.

Maybe artists need better cooperative producing models. Maybe theaters could provide shared publicity resources, mailing-list access, press support, or actual help reaching audiences. Maybe independent artists could pool some of the administrative labor instead of every person building the same flimsy little infrastructure alone.

Maybe we need to stop telling artists that the answer is simply to become better at self-promotion.

And perhaps some of the institutions that depend on artists’ work need to assume more responsibility for helping that work survive.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has been caught inside this machinery:

Is this model sustainable?

What have you seen work better?

What would need to change for independent theater-making to remain possible for people who do not have endless time, endless money, or an entire institution behind them?

I love making theater. I do not think loving it should require pretending that the system around it is working.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to writing an article for oncologists about hormone therapies for prostate cancer.

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Chicago: August 13, 20, and 27 at 9 p.m. at de Maat Studio Theatre
https://www.secondcity.com/shows/chicago/condemned-to-a-life-chi

New York: October 21 at 2 p.m. at Theatre Row as part of the United Solo Festival https://unitedsolo.org/the-21st-annual-united-solo-theatre-festival/condemned-to-a-life/