As part of the APT Peer Conversation Project, Maddie Bautista meets with Rebecca Vandevelde (Production Manager at Buddies in Bad Times and founding member of Means of Production) to discuss alternatives to the standard production tech week schedule/timeline.
What is the cost of a standard tech week? Physical + social.
Cost to herself:
Shift from freelance lifestyle to venue work lifestyle. Even before shifting schedules, she feels herself not blaming herself for being overbooked. This schedule is wrong, not me. THIS company booked too much hours and I am overworked, not because of the number of contracts that I take on.
Gig economy. Think “I made a bad choice”, even if you were forced to make a living this way
Work dictated everything about my life
The work schedule dictated MY schedule
The work is involved as PM, designer, crew, no room for anything else.
Freelancers don’t work project to project, we work tech week to tech week. Tech week becomes 80% of my year.
Putting everything on hold for tech week in the theatre, to her that puts her in scarcity mindset
Cannot function outside of executing your role and your job
You don’t care for yourself or consider needs as individual. Take out, Dirty laundry. Can’t see friends or family
Lived most of her life in non-life. No control over time and needs. Dealing with the most urgent problem.
Completely out of laundry. Stay up until 3AM to do laundry. Take out
Luckily, no dependents. Able to live this where because partner worked a different kind of job. Partner can take care.
Can’t be a person, just a worker.
It doesn’t matter how much you love your job or how positive it is, Eliminates anything outside of that room happening.
The pandemic with jobs stopping was an identity crisis apart from a job crisis. Who am I?
We HAVE to find a better way to do this. I wasn’t going to go back.
Have a personality that wasn’t your job, have interests.
How does this translate to industry and community?
Everyone’s work is sloppier
Everyone has LESS time to dedicate to a project
The more time you give a project, the more it can blossom
Rested people make better work
Are the people making the art okay? More than artistic excellence and rigour, though it is important.
Job is to work towards that with them, but workers NEED to be okay
Industry-wide, if EVERYONE lives that kind of life, then we have an industry ot exhausted people who can’t do their best who are living this lifestyle. It’s expected that you sacrifice.
Perpetuating a work culture that prioritizes artistic excellence than personal well-being
If your values need to put work first, then you make less brilliant work when you are exhausted. People who are paid well and get their needs met make better work and are less likely to be injured, sick, can take on additional favours and work for other projects. If you’re not overworked you can take on a mentee. You have room to do outreach.
Imagine if artists and technical workers took on mentees not because they have too much on their hands, but because they had the capacity and energy to give to their mentees
What was your path to find an alternative?
Biggest restriction is access to space, if we can spread out access to space, we can do this better.
Started chatting with other PMs and TDs. Folks who eventually became Means of Production have been meeting casually since 2018. Started meeting weekly in April 2020. All out of work. When things start up again, what do we want to do better?
Small informal survey before pandemic, how much are you making? What are the expectations on you? Are you able to meet your needs?
It is not surprising we are all underworked and underpaid.
PMs and TDs face A LOT of unique challenges cause of scope of role. It’s nebulous and misunderstood and defined project by project.
Small group of people that did freelance and production work for indie. We started talking.
Hosted town halls and panels. Pooling resources. Drafting mock rehearsal scheds and tech weeks. Contract initiation. Invited producers to pool knowledge on alternatives to tech weeks. Partnered with Why Not and GCTC. Access to an actual show they had done in the season. Access to schedule, budget, and parameters.
Rewrote the schedule and costed the schedule out.
Took proposals back to company who had done the show: what would the show look like if you did it this way?
An exercise to come up with alternatives
Version where we are working within the same conditions of CTA and ITA, and a blue skies version.
While working with Means of P, Buddies was going through transformation. Steph Raposo and Jac Costa were doing different versions of fundraisers and Pride, started developing a scheduling template and proposed it to Daniel Carter. And Daniel said yes, let’s try it.
When Rebecca started working at Buddies at Jan 2022, a similar thing was being implemented already at Buddies.
Let’s try it this way. Testing it out this season.
What are alternatives to the standard tech week?
Biggest shift. Steph and Jac proposed that Buddies do one fewer show per season. And every season gets to have an extra week. From first day of load-in to strike is now a 5-week period. Adjustments made to a season schedule to make it work. Previous show closes Sunday night. Monday dark. Tuesday strikes. Wednesday riser turnaround. Thursday, load-in for new show. There is a buffer week in the middle where they can strike and start load-in. For the first day of rehearsal, they’ve started load-in. Second week can do levels and even have cast on deck depending on build. Q2Q beginning of week 3, and sometimes the end of week 3, we can do runs (tech, dress). Adding a week for each project that doesn’t get added to the run.
The First Stone was 3rd show that was own production. They have done 2 festivals under this model. Template we start with and customize from there. White Girls in Moccasins, there was more room cuz first project coming into space. Easier to try this alternative because with manidoons collective and had a values alignment and the consequences. Longer time for designers and cast. Cost with space for venue, artist fees for collectives and producers. Everyone who is NOT on a weekly contract, there is a question, are you paying for another week or same hours stretched out. Challenges for designers who have booked another contract.
Cast of WGIM didn’t want a longer day, can do notes and share with cast the rehearsal day.
Two house technicians instead of one. What this makes possible is it’s much quicker to do notes with house crew instead of secondary crew in the morning with the company.
What changes do you observe when doing things differently?
The biggest non quantitative shift is prioritizing wellbeing. It changes the working culture. Different relationship with each other and the work. Example, having two house technicians and knowing that they know their safety and health is a priority, they’ve been able to say, there is something important on this day, can I sub someone in? I can say yes because there’s another house technician who knows what is going on.
House technicians can take a day off even if they have long hours. They can have plans in the evening or morning.
People are able to make choices with what is safe or good for them.
People are able to say, i need to work remote, i have caretaking responsibilities. That’s fine, we can shift things around because we have time and resources to shift.
It’s about the schedule, but also not, the sched is a manifestation of putting people first.
It fosters prioritizing being okay.
“Don’t want anyone to be harmed by the telling of this story” – Yolanda Bonnell.
Diet is different cause schedule is different
There are consequences that are unresolved.
Finally sorting receipts.
People need to be budgeting for the increased cost of stuff, to pay people a living wage (rising) and time for people to do your job.
$10,000.00 transportation budget, everyone has a mobility need. It got approved!
Accessibility workshops through MoP
Share MoP’s resources. Resources made from the producer x PM workshop.
Buddies can do it one fewer show a year. One less show gets support.
Want to make sure that as long as we are mentioning it’s possible because Steph and Jac wanted to do something different and Daniel said let’s try it. Instead of waiting to see whether it could happen. Say yes right away and figure out as we go. Don’t know if would have been possible in any other institution as Buddies was in the middle of transformation in a lot of levels. Investing in human development in the staff there, not just the professional development. Being able to walk into the job and the groundwork was there. Rebecca was able to experiment.
CARE AS A PRODUCTION WORKER
Still figuring out
Snack bentos with healthy foods
Working from home, making choices about “what is fastest.” Trick self into feeling like being cared for. The more I was willing to treat myself like a toddler, the more I could act like an adult in day to day life. Look at yourself as a parent taking care of a toddler.
Stretches, bubblebaths downtime, more meal prep. Would like more of this.
Develop a dislike of working into the night/evening, because I feel like I am cheated out of my evening. Not a crew call or preview, but paperwork after a whole day of work.
Didn’t know that anxiety and ADHD was a problem until everything came to a full stop. Thought it was normal. Would have just kept going if not have been unemployed for two years.
Advice to newly grads of production programs: challenging because I have these bad habits. Went to class, had part-time jobs while going through school. Wish I did things that could be more possible at that time like travel, try different jobs. Let myself get taken advantage of by people who likely didn’t mean it, but didn’t give me a lot of money to get some experience. Refused completely unpaid work. Crew work instead of design opportunities is because I could not afford to work for free. Crew work doing hangs helped me learn more about lighting design.
Took assistant gigs.
I wish I believed this: there is no such thing as a career. You’re gonna like some of them, you’re gonna hate some of them. There are a million shows. Not every show is crucial. Most people you think you’re building a working with, may not reciprocate. Don’t put your life on hold. There are a lot of companies I have a great working relationship with now, relationship for 10 years, but did not provide me with a career. A hard time with a career in the arts. It’s project based. It’s easy to get locked down into a certain kind of thing because you’ve been asked to do it once. There’s no shame in not having a career and doing shifts when you feel like it. Don’t give up everything to get started.
The shortage of production workers – what is your take on this? Rebecca: I have big feelings about this. There is no such thing as a labour shortage ever, there are people who are trained, cared for, and compensated for a good fee. There are just people who are willing to work for the conditions you are offering. Not specific to our industry. Spent 2 years hoarding money and spending it on playwrights. Spending money on new work development. No one gave money to designers, craftspeople. Production managers who work gig to gig for long hours. For 2 years, there was no work or investment, so they moved to film. This labour shortage was created by companies that chose to invest in playwrights or essential artists only. It was difficult for freelance workers to get access to CERB. There was no work to be had even as we pivoted to digital. A lot of it was actors who were paid to act on Zoom with maybe a stage manager hired. Of course people got other work. We are dealing with now is a consequence in a choice that was made. No investment in production workers or designers. I don’t begrudge playwrights that money. They should be paid.
IATSE and ADC did great advocacy work.
There are people who left the industry and people who have learned their job for 2 years over Zoom who don’t have the practical experience. People graduating from production programs will go to film and TV because no one may hire them due to limited experience. Everyone is struggling to fill their crew calls. I’ve been overcrowded at Buddies. Everyone we paid to train in livestreaming last summer has gone to work in other places. We don’t have trouble filling calls.
Theatre Ontario’s PTTP – applied to it in 2011. Did 3 shows together. This was LOST.
ADC’s Assistant Mentorship Program.
Feeling pumped about Means of Production’s mentorship model where instead of having a Production Manager and Assistant, we have a Production Manager and a Production Supervisor. Mentee gets experience of being in charge, but the Production Supervisor make sure all paperwork is lined up, oversees, and is a resource to you and is committed to that project. Maya on Our Place at TPM in Cahoots. Setting everything up and then passing it off. First round of production schedule and first round of costing. Running the production meetings and the notes. Support of someone to back her up. Help more people become successful production staff without having to do a lot small shows for no money that might break you, just in order how to figure out to do our jobs. Glad its not a rite of passage anymore. Crystal Lee originator of this idea.
Now that we are out of the pandemic and busy again, it’s a struggle to connect with MoP as open. Structure of leadership is fluid to meet the needs of the membership. Things are allowed to stagnate. Most of the work is project based and led by the person most passionate about that project. Everything has a couple of people working on it. No centralized leadership structure. Move through projects at the speed that they are able to move them. Some things are able to be tangibly achieved (written report, applied to grant, hosted workshops) and some are on the backburner for a long while. Things go on pause as people work or go on tour. Pushing each other to keep showing up and doing the work. Understanding that the nature of our work is cyclical and get intense at times. Forgiving each other for missing out or needing to take breaks. Maintain that level of understanding while being able to achieve our goals. That means some of the goals are very long term by necessity. For 2nd half of the season, one of our members was hired to do all of our admin work. The problem is we are all too overbooked. A lot of project specific work is paid hourly. Some parts are not paid.
An organization can just choose to plan and give enough time and money to everyone by doing less stuff. There are good reasons to not make that choice. We all live under the tyranny of capitalism. Choices will be hard. There is no ethical artmaking under capitalism, but you can write a budget that includes more time and more season. You can plan a season with less stuff in it. Stuck in tyranny of topdown leadership of cramming too many things to do in a season. We don’t need to put up with it. Nothing can be done without your workers. This is big cliche but if the designers, technicians, actors don’t put up with it… There’s a lot more nuance in the real world, but you can just say no. If yuo’re working in the kind of room where that feedback is questioned (why 10/12s?), you should leave. This is a super simplified, idealized version of that. Don’t want to imply that people aren’t doing their best and hardest to survive, but Rebecca wonders if we are all feeling this and feeling tired and scared to say no? Who is on the other side of the conversation that we are scared of? Making the schedule, make the budget that reflect what we want. What are we up against? Have the funding bodies said no? Have we even asked? Did the AD say no? Why can’t we afford it?
