In all conversations about pay and conditions in theatre there is an uncomfortable truth: the vast majority of people in full-time employment are better paid, and enjoy better working conditions and ancillary benefits, than those who work freelance. This truth is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of freelance workers are the actors, the directors, the designers and the stage managers, without whom nothing could function.
This tension frames an argument that puts the funding of buildings into a position contrary to the funding of artists. For me, this way of viewing our undeniable and complex challenges creates a counter-productive sense of “them” and “us”.
But then, I would say that.
I have been the artistic director and joint chief executive of Northern Stage for two years. It’s a great job, it’s the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, it’s rife with paradox and I love it.
This is the first time I have done this sort of job. Prior to taking up this role, I have variously been a freelance director, run my own company and been a full-time employee of building-based theatres. Northern Stage is an organisation with a turnover of £2.85m and a full-time staff of over 30. We work with a complex web of stakeholders, partners, audiences, participants and artists. We receive £1.6m in investment from Arts Council England annually. We spend £1.79m pounds a year on artistic activity, participation and talent development.
Beyond this cash figure, we invest substantial further resources – time, space, equipment and expertise – to support smaller companies freelance artists and community groups. In this way we seek to enable the profound contribution these groups and individuals make to the cultural and social life of our communities. A lot of our activity generates income, a lot of it does not. Those things we do that lose money do not do so because we are bad at business but because they are driven by social, cultural and political imperatives that don’t score well on a the bottom line.
As has been the case since I started at Northern Stage, we are looking into an uncertain financial future. The autumn spending review will almost certainly bring further cuts to the Arts Council. The scale of these could be anywhere between a further painful tightening of resources to a cut of sufficient size that our current business models and modes of operation will have to be radically reimagined.
As the financial realities of our operation become more constrained, the pressure on the pay and working conditions for those people we employ increases, and any attempts to narrow the gap between how we pay our freelancers and our full-time staff become yet more challenging.
This is, of course, not a black and white issue.
I am completely convinced that every member of full-time staff at Northern Stage is entitled to their level of salary, their holiday pay, their pension contributions, their sick pay, their maternity/paternity benefits and the other statutory rights that they receive. I believe that full-time salary levels within theatre are disproportionately low compared to many sectors.
As an employer we abide with collective bargaining agreements, encourage Union membership and work closely with organisations such as the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union, Stage Directors UK and Equity. Yet it remains true that even our lowest-paid staff are better paid than the majority of freelance actors, directors, writers and designers. Benefits such as maternity pay, sick pay or realistic levels of private pension contribution are vain hopes for the majority of freelance artists.
It has been greatly heartening in the face of the sustained and repeated cuts of recent years to see that the theatre sector has responded by becoming more collaborative; that building-based theatres are being more transparent; that many buildings are genuinely trying to work better as partners with small companies and solo artists. The thought that the resources we husband are not ours, but exist for a diverse community of users and must be accessible to as many as possible, is increasingly an accepted norm rather than a bold outlier.
If – or more realistically when – the next axe falls on government investment into the culture sector (an investment which, let us not forget, is repaid many times over in the tax revenues we produce), one of the great challenges will be to continue to improve the deal offered to those most underpaid.
Whatever the future financial landscape looks like, there will be pressure to freeze, squeeze and degrade the financial deals we offer to our freelance and full-time employees alike. In this reality, one of the key responsibilities of buildings will be to accept a role as a champion for the employment rights and conditions of all. There is no “them” – there is only a complex and shifting “us”.
In order to find better ways forward, I believe our conversations about the questions of investment, pay and conditions are not ones of buildings or institutions v artists. Buildings need to explain better how they multiply the cash investment they receive; we need to invite and fully participate in a continued collective effort to make more, make better and pay fairly for all.
- Lorne Campbell is taking part in a Guardian Live event chaired by Lyn Gardner at the Edinburgh festival on 26 August. Tickets for the event, which looks at the impact of the Edinburgh fringe on UK theatre and beyond, cost £3. The other panellists are Charlie Wood, director at Underbelly; Jo Crowley, an independent producer; and Ahmed El Attar, artistic director at D-CAF, Cairo.
