We are all many things at once and focusing on one aspect does not make you immune to the rest.
I start this off by stating clearly that the multiple layers at work here have a ripple effect on the whole of our life.
I am mad. I accepted a job in New York and in December moved across the country to follow my dreams and work at one of the most prestigious off- broadway theaters in the nation. Why did I do that? I felt it necessary to invest in me, to grow, to try on New York City.
I don’t come from theater, I discovered theater as a form of communication in my 20s, I grew up watching film musicals and I had gone to see theater, as much as a poor kid gets to go on field trips to the Pantages in Los Angeles as a kid can. Also, to be clear, I am not ashamed of that either. Theater was not made for me, it did not speak to me or reflect me. When have I ever seen a Salvadoran play a Salvadoran in a main stage play with a joyous storyline? NEVER. Congrats if you have, I have not. How many Latinx plays have I seen that don’t have dancing, singing, kidnapping, border crossing or dictatorships? Not a whole lot.
So here I am, accepting a job on the other side of the US because someone thought I could do a good job. But also, well aware that I am moving across the country for a job that pays a surviving living wage in New York City, with no relocation assistance. I don’t make enough to save, I spend an entire paycheck on rent, a luxury I had to take to not live with multiple roommates because this is the norm for New York and it shouldn’t be. This is were I feel that our industry mirrors the housing crisis in 2009, giving loans to purchase homes with interest rates that would break anyone. Food is expensive, transportation is expensive, utilities are expensive and you are lead to believe that if you can’t figure it out then you don’t belong here. I question my choice/sanity in accepting this job, should I have accepted? Should it had been offered to me? Why did I follow this dream? Why do we even dream?
Now we can all blame the pandemic for the crisis but this crisis existed well before the pandemic. All the pandemic did was highlight the truth of how many of us live to survive and fast forwarded the crisis to a months time. If the pandemic had not arrived, I would still be living paycheck to paycheck, stressed, worried how I was going to make ends meet and looking for a second job. I am not the only one that lives paycheck to paycheck, or relies on my job for health insurance, and has to negotiate eating with paying rent. I am afraid to go to the hospital because of how much it will cost with insurance. I don’t make enough to pay the deductible for a procedure without having to pull out a credit card and then having that fee grow due to the interest rate on my credit card. This has been the narrative of my life, struggling to thrive and yet I still believe in this dream - the dream where I create content that a kid like me can relate to, That speaks to 10 year old me, that makes me feel seen and creates community through a shared experience. I believe this, I want to believe that all this sacrifice to live in the greatest cities in the world, to pursue my dreams is worth it. But these institutions are living paycheck to paycheck, perpetuating the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. They pay us paycheck to paycheck when they themselves live paycheck to paycheck. And the cycle continues.
I go back to theater. Theater has been digging a hole for a long time, well before this pandemic. This pandemic puts on blast the one-sided conversation theater has with its audience and staff. The question asked in every staff meeting, if we cannot bring people together then what are we? My eyes roll back to the deepest part of my brain. We are the people. The staff, the creators, the connectors. our job is to stay relevant, to reflect our society. The question really should have been, if we can’t take care of are people then what are we.
It was the people on the front lines that were fired and furloughed. The people who live paycheck to paycheck. The people who welcome your audience and probably know your audience best. And those people, ME, are the first to go when an institution can’t pay its bills. It was the people who make up the institution that you turned your back on, that is the theater community that has been obliterated.
How many folxs sat in meetings about digital content, the very same week the pandemic was declared?
How many of us have been trying to create programming bridging the digital and analog world just to receive a push back?
Now I have to ask, is an institution that can’t protect its community worth saving?
For so long theater has been living out of its means, producing bigger, wider and broader. Living paycheck to paycheck and creating a system where they very much have weaponized dreaming. We are suppose to sacrifice our monetary worth to follow our dreams. And if you questions the status quo you are uninvited to the party.
I am mad. I am mad for being offered a job that did not offer me the salary I deserved in order to thrive in New York City. I am mad for my co-workers who have been furloughed. I am mad when I am told that this is the only way to save the institution. I am mad that the higher ups tell us the furlough will only last until August but the company will be a lot smaller when we return. I am mad that there was no plan. I am made that I will lose my apartment and have to move back, cross country because I couldn’t make it. I am mad that we do not see people as people and acknowledge that we should strive to thrive. That if one member in our community is struggling, that means we are all struggling. We have achieved nothing but a false sense of accomplishment.
I ask myself, was accepting this job a bad idea? Probably yes, probably no. I knew that I would be living out of my means but I thought - the risk would lead to a greater reward. If I can make it in New York City I can make it anywhere right? No. Not true. Did my employer take advantage of me? Yes, just like every other job that offers the bare minimum.
And here I stand wondering how I will survive the next month in a place that is not my home. A place that I spent all my savings to get to and that now I have to leave.
The theater is just a stand in for every other job. The difference is that it manipulates the hope that blossoms out of dreaming to provide sustainability for the few, unfortunately on the backs of the hard working dreamers it employs.
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