Heatwaves and Higher Pay

Jun 21

I'm in the theatre right now, watching our Summer Shakes Program Director, Alric Davis, start work with this year's Juilliard students on JULIUS CAESAR. The bones of the FAIRVIEW set are still on stage; we're in the middle of transition. FAIRVIEW was a tremendous success for us, artistically and at the box office, and Summer Shakes ushers in our educational component, and ushers out 4th Wall's 12th season.

If you don't already know, Summer Shakes brings two current Juilliard Drama Division students to 4th Wall, mixes them with a dozen Houston high school students, and together, they perform a Shakespeare play. Because we've been successful in finding funding for this program, the high school students participate free of charge - meaning that the only requirement for them to take part is acting ability - and the Juilliard students are paid, and are treated the way we treat union actors.

The Juilliard students this year, Omete Anassi and Iyinoluwa Akintoye, have been in Houston for two days, as I write this, and the high temperatures here have been over 100. Luckily, the welcome for them in all other ways has been pretty....cool. They're happy where they're living, and they've already brought incredible energy and enthusiasm to the rehearsal room.

It makes me so happy, as an alumnus of Juilliard, and as artistic director at 4th Wall, to see these two men here, doing good work, discovering Houston, and being supported by 4th Wall as theatrical artists.

Since day one, Kim and I have been very vocal about attempting to pay theatrical artists a "living wage." Defining that has always been tricky: what is a living wage? Compared to what? On several occasions, we've been challenged by funders and board members to think about that idea differently, or even abandon it.

I believe that our thinking about it is, indeed, changing, and that we are going to find a very specific way of comparing it to other theatres in Houston, and in the country. In fact, watching these two Juilliard students makes me think that what we're actually doing is supporting theatrical artists while they are working with 4th Wall, rather than actually paying a living wage.

If, while working at 4th Wall, theatrical artists can afford to do the best work possible, have we fulfilled our mission? If an artist can afford to find the time outside of the theatre to do the work that has to be done at home (memorizing lines, script analysis, drafting a light plot or a set or a costume plot, composing music, planning blocking) have we fulfilled our mission?

I look up and see Iyinoluwa and Omete learning a dance step from Alric. I think the step is going to be used during the assassination of Caesar. "Never seen that before" is the thought in my mind. I smile. Then (notwithstanding the fact that I'm a terrible dancer), I try to put myself in the shoes of these young Juilliard students. If, when I was a student at Juilliard in the late 1980's, I'd had the chance to do what they're doing, and had been paid what they're being paid, and been living where they are in Houston, would I have been able to do my best work? Would I have been able to learn something about Shakespeare? Would I have grown as an artist, and as a person? And I have to answer "yes to all," which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, we're on the right track.