So there keeps being more conversation about these unpaid internships offered by the several major and most of the minor regional theaters in the states, and I've read several points that I've found to be quite poignant. In my previous post I linked to Scott Walters talking more about the subject, but this comment on his post at his CRADLE blog was one that I found to be quite relevant.
"People who “just make a living” doing art have to work pretty hard it, no matter where they came from, because the market for non-popular art is small, the costs of making it (including living expenses) exceeds its salable price, and arts funding is limited.Should access to a quality secondary school education be expanded? Of course.Should arts education be expanded? Yes. Arts funding? Yes.Is this overall situation unfair? Yup.And do a lot of faux bohemian aspirants make a bunch of bad art. Yes again. Good art requires craft and knowledge. This has to be obtained somehow — aptitude and educational background both matter.Do people from modest backgrounds succeed? Yes, they do.Is the arts world disorganized, political and often inept? Yes. Is it a systemetized plutocracy? I think that’s a big stretch."
Walters replied to this as such:
"The plutocracy precedes the art. What I am saying is that the opportunities go to those who are privileged. In addition, those who have less financial pressures can more readily afford to focus on their work, popular or non-popular. Yes, they have to work at it — the point is that they have the opportunity to do so. It is easier to reach the magic 10,000 hours of practice plateau described by Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers” if you’re not spending 40 hrs a week putting food on the table. Similarly, it is easier to say yes to an opportunity to get a foot in the door by accepting an unpaid or slightly paid internship if somebody else is taking care of the finances.Do people from modest backgrounds succeed? Sure. People who play a weak hand in bridge sometimes win — they just have to be better players. But those in the theatre present the playing field as flat, and success as based on “talent” (i.e., merit), and that is simply not true."
This is interesting to me. Am I privileged? Yes. Am I born from the upper classes? Yes. If I get either of the internships I am currently interviewing for (at the Actors Theatre and Milwaukee Rep) will I be able to afford to do it? Again, the answer is yes.
And so personally I can completely see what it is that Scott is saying. There is inherently a bias, there is inherently a disservice being done to those who don't have the resources as a result of their familial situation.
But to be frank, what are the other options? Without overhauling the entirety of the American theatrical system (which may be a laudable goal, but certainly isn't coming down the pipeline any time soon), how can you hope to rectify this situation perfectly? If you mandate that theatre companies must start paying interns who work for more than two months minimum wage, these internships will simply vanish. As I mentioned a while ago, these internships existing is better than them not existing, and that seems the only response that there could be to legislation demanding the end of unpaid internships. Theatre simply isn't profitable enough at the smaller end of the spectrum. This is a sad truth.
For instance, Riverside Theatre (Iowa City's resident professional theatre) offers a summer internship that coincides with their Shakespeare Festival, and they pay the interns a minimal stipend and house them for the summer. This theatre produces high quality work on a regular basis, and has a sterling reputation in the community. But the company is barely able to survive as is, relying heavily on donations from members of the community. If this company were forced to pay interns more heavily, this internship would no longer exist. I was a member of the Riverside intern company for the summer of 2008, and it was a fantastic learning experience in a number of ways. It would be a shame if these positions no longer existed.
Of course, if there was more governmental funding for theatre and the arts in general, maybe companies could afford to pay their interns a little bit more. Theatre simply shouldn't have to exist merely as a self-sustaining business. Just as libraries survive without generating overhead because they provide the community with a necessary resource, so should professional-grade theatre be viewed in the same light. But I'll post more on that later.
