The first thing I have to tell you is: I’m really grateful for my job. One of my previous clients was, to put it simply, evil and stupid.
The second thing I have to tell you is: this new job is kind of a total shitshow. I traded an evil and stupid employer for a foolish, desperate, and short-sighted one.
The third thing I have to tell you is: Everything I just said is open knowledge.
Not only does my employer have a reputation for being 20 pounds of chaos in a five-pound bag, but I signed an NDA when I was hired and nothing I have to say is a trade secret. In fact, I spend most of my time communicating bits of it to the public in more flattering language. I’m only cagey with some of these details because, while one could figure out my real-life identity from what I’ve already said, I don’t want it explicitly spelled out in the front of a Tumblr post, of all places. My personal information is promiscuous, but it’s not a free-use exhibitionist whore, for god’s sake.
I work for a nonprofit comedy theatre that does pretty much everything, but has a specialization and reputation for improv comedy. On paper, I am the full-time marketing staff with support in the form of a part-time communications manager and an occasional hired third-party contractor. Every day is a new “emergency” that never truly qualifies for or reaches the level of crisis management, but it sure gets treated like it does.
My absolute favorite story of this nature being: before I was hired, a director wanted to do a Guns N’ Roses-themed improv one-off—advertised and everything. It wasn’t selling well in advance, but more importantly, the cast thought it was stupid. They overpowered the director and decided they’d do an *NSYNC show instead about three days before curtain. I’m told it “sold better”, but considering the timeline and the audience’s tendency to procrastinate in buying tickets for this particular type of show, who’s to say?
Whenever I get to overwhelmed by a last-minute change in programming and how much messaging must change, I recall the moment the youngest member of the cast self-assuredly recounted to me, “We’re DOING *NSYNC!” and then I remember that nothing I’m doing is actually that important. We’re just doing *NSYNC and praying that people like it—specifically people within ticket-buying distance of the theatre. Each show may be treated like a digital project for the purposes of marketing, but it sure isn’t in reality.
What this means is that the greatest consequence for any errors I put out regarding showtimes, misspellings, or confusing information is a bunch of people on the social media channels correct me in the comments—which is increased engagement, might I add—or talk amongst themselves about how, “The marketing for this place is really bad. What do they even do all day? How could they miss that?”—which means that people are paying attention to what’s goin’ out in the first place. While a show can fail, my efforts can’t fail as long as I keep making them since, to a certain extent, it’s true what they say: any press is good press.
But the bane of my existence is the theatre’s social media, which unfortunately takes up most of my time. As a person, I just plain-vanilla hate it, which is why I have a Tumblr—the social media platform for people who hate social media—and as a professional, I know many of the most common influencer strategies are not sustainable if social media is not one’s whole-ass entire job. And even then, it’s not always sustainable depending on what one is doing.
My feelings are not a secret.
“Everyone, I know it makes you miserable, but as your marketing person, it is my job to remind you—this is 2025. You can’t do anything anymore without proving it on social media. LinkedIn is a progress report. Whenever you have a production meeting, a lunch meeting with other theatre professionals, or even attend shows here or at other local theatres, I need you to take a picture. You can post it on your own profiles and tag the theatre, or you can send it to me and I will post it directly to the company page. But you have to do it,” I said last week to a room of thoroughly whelmed individuals. “Remember: you know you’re doing it right if it makes you miserable and like you just gave away a piece of your soul and sacrificed time that you will never get back.”
Or, more to the point: “Remember—we’re driving sales. A good rule of thumb is that the thing you don’t want to give up or show to others is the only thing of any value, so that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m going to come ask you for.”
However, my attitude is not shared by the younger members of the talent pool. This is a mixed blessing. Sometimes, they’ll volunteer to help me make silly, nothingburger videos to feed the content machine between meaningful announcements. That is, they say they will ‘til I hit ‘em with the ol’ ground rules.
“Whatever you do must relate directly to the theatre or the current show taking place there with which you are involved,” I say. “I don’t share self-promotion or individual ensemble members’ projects that don’t relate to the theatre. If I promoted one performer’s project and not another ‘cause I just didn’t know about it, they would probably rip me apart, and then try to do the same to each other.”
Any support I’m offered dries up real fast after that. But I know this is probably the right call because, once, I saw the dawning of understanding bloom on one of the older performers’ faces.
“Oh. You’re right. Because we’re the worst kind of people,” he said.
“Nah,” I said. “You’re just actors.”
“Yeah. Like I said: the worst kind of people,” he repeated—as serious as a heart attack.
So, apparently, I work with the worst kind of people.
