Money Lab Survey: Salaries of artists vs. non-artists

Well, after a whole lot of number crunching (honestly, 6 hours or so...what's my hourly rate?) I finally have the survey results from Money Lab.

Many caveats here:  obviously, this is a self selecting lot.  You had to either fill out the survey at the show or online.  Also, many chose not to reveal their salary, despite the fact that it was an anonymous survey.  Our highest salary was $225,000, and I know of at least two audience members who make more.  On the other side, there were those who simply noted they were ashamed of how little they made and didn't want to share.  A number of them, actually, which I suspect would drive these averages down.  But I decided to only work with people who had provided numbers.

I also noticed that asking people whether they were (a) a professional artists and (b) made the majority of their money from their art caused really emotional reactions from some people.  I can't say I blame them.  I have my own emotions about those questions as well.  But for the purposes of the survey, I am defining part-time artists as professional artists who get the majority of their income elsewhere (though they may well spend more time on their art than on their day job).

I used census data as a sort of control.  I only have data for the five boroughs, so it's harder to compare out of New York, but I did do two types of comparisons:  Artists vs non-artists who answered the survey, artists vs. residents of NYC with similar demographics.

In all cases, I found the cost of being an artist to be significant.  At the least a difference in income of $24,000/year (part-time artists vs. NYC residents with similar demographics), at the most a difference of $45,000 (full-time artists vs. NYC residents with similar demographics).

Thinking of the subject in terms of a decade of work, an artist is giving up between $240,000 and $450,000 dollars per decade on average, in return for the emotional satisfaction of being able to do artwork.

I have been working for 20 years.  According to my subset (full-time artist living in NYC), I have given up about $900,000 in order to be an artist.

That was my choice, freely given.  I feel I have a life that is more fulfilled.  But damn.  Can I also have the money?

Here are the results:

Non-Artists

Average salary (all) $74,000
Average salary (lives in NYC): $76,800
Median salary (all): $75,000
Median salary: (lives in NYC): $68,000
Average Salary compared to artists who completed survey: +32, 333
Salary compared to other residents in their borough in NYC, with similar demographics, according to census data: +13,000

Artists (combined) 

Average salary (all) $41,667
Average salary (lives in NYC): $39,400
Median salary (all):$40,000
Median salary: (lives in NYC): $30,000
Average Salary compared to non-artists who completed survey: -$32,333
Salary compared to other residents in their borough in NYC, with similar demographics, according to census data: -28,000

Artists who make majority of their income from art:

Average salary (all) $45,800*
Average salary (lives in NYC): $37,313
Median salary (all): $35,000
Median salary: (lives in NYC): $35,000
Average Salary compared to non-artists who completed survey: -$28,200
Salary compared to other residents in their borough in NYC, with similar demographics, according to census data: -45,000

*Note, one large salary (from a non-New York resident) may have skewed results for the Average salary (all)

Artists who DO NOT make majority of their income from art:

Average salary (all) $39,250
Average salary (lives in NYC): $40, 778
Median salary (all): $35,000
Median salary: (lives in NYC): $35,000
Average Salary compared to non-artists who completed survey: -$34,750
Salary compared to non-artists in their borough in NYC, with similar demographics, according to census data: -$24,000


OTHER STATS
104 replies
57 professional artists (36 part-time, 21 full-time)
47 non-artists


Types of Artists

39 Theater
6 Visual
4 Literature
1 Music
2 Dance
1 Film
4 Other

Average Age: 38

Education:
4 High School
8 Some College
39 College Degrees
53 Graduate Degrees

Residency
69 NYC residents
35 non NYC residents

Money Lab: Good Charity, Good Charity

A New York Times op-ed by Peter Singer ("Good Charity, Bad Charity") was just written that relates directly to the food vs. flowers debate that I previously write about on the blog, and which was one of the main focuses on Money Lab. So I took a pause in my Money Lab statistics evaluation (ongoing!) to write a few thoughts on it.

The article designates health causes as “good charities” and the arts as “bad charities” based on the most specious of analyses. There are so many gaping holes in the particular editorial it is hard to simply pick one, but I shall do my best.

First of all, in order to prove his point, Singer handpicks two examples that he chooses to be representative. To represent the arts, he chooses a museum that is building a new $50 million wing. To represent health, he chooses a theoretical charity seeking to reduce the eye disease, trachoma. This charity, apparently a never-before seen model of efficiency, is able to convert your donation immediately so that each $100 automatically saves someone from the disease.

How can you compare the morality, Mr Singer argues, of giving someone money to cure blindness, compared to the selfish interests of a few frivolous museum goers who want to see more pretty pictures? In fact, he goes so far as to posit a demon that blinds someone every time a certain number of people patronize that new museum wing.

Oh art lovers, know that you are sticking a hot poker into the eye of good health!

Of course, even if you credit his economics (which I will address in a moment), his examples are absurd. If he wants to see examples of companies that do a very lot with a very little, there is no better place to look than the arts. I have not done the totals yet, but I know that the Money Lab workshop cost under $5,000. And yet—every participant was paid for their work (some paid extra due to the patronage auction), and we produced a theater piece that played to sold out houses every performance.

But to think that the benefits end there is to not understand the nature of art. The discussions the show inspired will, I hope, shape the thinking of those who saw the work. That in turn will filter out into the world of ideas, and indeed, I do think that great social change often originates from the smallest of art. I am not trying to be grandiose when I say the intention of Money Lab is to change the world. To me, every art piece does, or should.

And then there is the benefit to the artists. Besides the relatively small monetary benefits, there is the opportunity to practice their craft, to develop, to ready themselves for the next piece of work. Every art piece is merely a gateway to then next ten, the next twenty.

And to me, and to the company—the benefit is incalculable. There is the benefit of spreading the work further, because of the press it has and will receive. But also the benefit of being able to shape and refine my own ideas, which once only resided in my head, and to make them tangible and real. To communicate to others. It is more than a desire that I have to do that, it is a need, for my own happiness. If you told me that I needed to give up my art or face a 1 in 1,000 chance of blindness, is there any question which I would choose?

And yet this workshop cost only $5,000, probably less. A $100,000 donation could fund up to 20 - 30 such workshops. Or a couple of fully realized productions, with all that entails.

Now look at a health foundation. The truth is, most health foundations are relatively inefficient. In a survey of charities, it was found that it was not unusual for 50% of the costs to go towards administration. The Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation was found recently to spend almost all of its money on administration.

But beyond bureaucracy, much of the money is spent on research, and, inevitably, much of the research leads to dead ends. Solutions are in short supply, though when they are found, they can often pay for themselves; there is a reason that drug companies spend so much on research, and the reason is money. This is not to say that one should not give nonetheless, but it should be with the understanding that the $100,000 you give will disappear into a well of $50 million or $500 million, and that the results may be as little as identifying the fact the research should now be directed elsewhere.

Does that make, say, autism or cancer or trachoma a bad charity? Of course not (though perhaps the Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation might not be your best bet). You give to what you believe, you help the world how you can. And yes, one of those ways could be towards a museum building a new wing.

It would be unusual for them to ask. Most such developments are actually spurred by one or two large funders. But if asked, maybe you do want your money to go towards that museum. Maybe that new wing will display a new artist, and that support will lead to a career. Maybe that artist will be one of the greats. Or maybe someone walking through the museum will stop, look at a painting, and be inspired. Maybe it will change her life.

Maybe, one day, should she ever grow ill, that memory, the memory of all the art she has seen and experienced, will be her comfort.

Money Lab: Detroit, bankruptcy, and the arts

A recent article in the New York Times about the Detroit bankruptcy and the Detroit Institute of Arts brings me back to a theme I wrote about in an earlier posting about food vs. flowers. As part of Money Lab, I am trying to examine how we value art, and this current crisis put that question into stark relief.

About 10 years ago I took some trips to Detroit in order to visit someone I was dating. Anyone who has been in Detroit knows that the contrast between the city center and the suburbs is a stark one. The city is abandoned and impoverished, and there are stunning border areas where one can follow a street past boarded up buildings and then suddenly find oneself surrounded by fancy houses with beautiful lawns, literally yards apart.

There were, however, two bright spots I remember in the inner city. One was an old Beaux Arts building, which houses the still thriving Detroit Institute of Arts. The other was the new Detroit Tigers’ baseball stadium, Comerica Park.

Both were built with city money of course, one at the end of the 19th century, one in at the end of the 20th. However, it is the art museum that has continued to be dependent on public money. After many years, with the help of the tax dollars of the surrounding counties, it is now relatively solvent. However, Detroit’s bankruptcy places the museum in another sort of alarming jeopardy; the pensioners, the ones who are so unfairly in jeopardy themselves because of the bankruptcy, see an asset. The art inside is worth $2 billion. And they want it sold.

That is a bit of a blanket statement, which ignores certain nuances. The pensioners are not the city’s only debtors. Nor are they a uniform block, I am sure plenty of pensioners might regard the virtual destruction of the museum to be a tragic event. But the question, in law, is clear: will Detroit be obligated to see off the art in the museum in order to help fund the pensions?

Putting aside that legal question, which no one has yet answered, I will pose two more: what is the more economically advantageous thing to do? And does either decision have more moral weight?

Economically, it would be a clear blow, I think. Getting rid of the museum’s collection would mean that one of the few remaining bright spots in the city has been doused. The museum would have to shut down, simply because of the logistics of museum funding.  Much of the art was given with the explicit caveat that it must not be sold, and selling it would have huge repercussions on private funding, partly because it would end any chance of future art donations.  Furthermore, the blowback from the Association of Art Museum Directors would be huge: their sanctions against the National Academy Museum were extremely painful, and the NAM's offenses amounted to just two paintings. And finally, and this is the nail in the coffin really, the museum is currently being funded by tax dollars from surrounding counties, which would end immediately.  They would complain (legitimately) that their tax dollars had been spent to sustain the museum, not to get Detroit out of debt. The downtown cultural district, or what remains of it, would be effectively demolished, and the peripheral effect on surrounding businesses and restaurants will be stark. There will be even less of a reason to go into the city itself, leaving it even more of a black hole around which more enticing suburbs circle, hoping not to get sucked in.

As a comparison, the baseball stadium cost $115 million in public funding. Because that public money was essentially given to a private owner, rather than holding the stadium as a city asset, the stadium is safe. The reason behind that expenditure was the purported economic benefits of the stadium. In actuality, studies show that the money cities spend on stadiums tends to be a loss, while the smaller expenditures on museums spur enough economic growth to be a gain. But since museums are non-profit while sports activities are definitely for profit, museums often are seen as leeches. If it is economically worthwhile, why doesn’t it make money? (as a side note, it seems that even the $500 million pledged to a new hockey stadium is safe)

Of course, there may be some relief provided for pensioners, and it is hard to deny the needs of the retired population, those who have worked hard in civil service or as teachers or policeman all their lives, only to see their promised benefits stripped away. How much relief will it afford? That, I think, is debatable. How will the money be used, through what filters will it be put, how widely does it need to be distributed….will it mean a substantive increase in pension, or in essence a one time payment of another couple of hundred dollars? And what economic penalties will they pay for the further decay of the city in which they live? I suspect the benefits may be more negligible, and the loss more acute, than people initially guess.

But let us say, for the sake of argument, the benefit is a significant one. In a case such as that, what moral right is there for us to demand the preservation of a museum’s art collection? That is a murkier question. Money was spent by taxpayers so that people would have a chance to look at pretty pictures. Selling the collection doesn’t mean destroying the pictures, it means removing access to them. Some would go to private collectors. Some might be bought by other museums. What it will definitely do is remove that opportunity in Detroit. To a pensioner who doesn’t care for art, the opportunity to eat a little better is clearly the preferred alternative. And even for those who do care for art…

Well, here is a scenario. I pose it to you. Guaranteed income for the rest of your life. In return, I ask one thing. I will destroy one painting by Vincent Van Gogh. It won’t be Starry Night. But it will be Van Gogh, and it will be beautiful.

What choice do you make?

Money Lab: Excerpt from The Neurology of the Soul

The new play I've been working on, The Neurology of the Soul, addresses not only neurology, but some of these issue I'm exploring for Money Lab.  Mark, in the play, is a neuromarketer, someone who using neurology as a basis for his marketing.  In the course of the play, Amy starts making art basic on the images of her brain, and Mark becomes interested in marketing that art. This on the cost of being an artist:

mark

Do you know why starving artists choose to starve?

amy

It’s a choice?

mark

Usually.  Because, let’s face it, plenty of artists are just as smart and capable as businessmen, wouldn’t you say?

amy

I suppose.  Yes, of course.

mark

But they put a value on something other than money, correct?

amy

Right.

mark

Let’s call that thing artistic fulfillment.  How much is artistic fulfillment worth, in terms of dollars and cents?

amy

It don’t think it can be evaluated like that.

mark

Nonsense.  Saying something can’t be evaluated simply means that you haven’t found the right formula, yet.  Let’s take a theoretical scenario.  Let’s say you compared what artists and businessmen of similar background and education make.  And say you found that, all things being equal, an average businessman makes $50,000 per year more than the average artist.  Does that seem plausible?

amy

More than, unfortunately.  It’s probably more than that.

mark

OK, but let’s be conservative, and say $50,000 per year.  Over 40 years, that’s two million dollars per lifetime.  Available, for you, for any artist.  Only thing is, you need to make that choice.

amy

Some artists make good money.

mark

Many?

amy

No, of course not.

mark

And you know that, going in.  Two million dollars, on average.  Maybe, less, if you’re a successful artist.  Maybe more, if you’re a successful businessman.  Two million dollars, and the choice is yours.  Business or art?

amy

I’ve worked in offices, too.

mark

To make ends meet, or as a career?

amy

Does it matter why?

mark

I think it does.  I think that makes a difference in salary.  You’re a smart woman, Amy.  You could be making a lot of money, if that was your major goal in life.  So, two million dollars, or artistic fulfillment?  Which do you choose?

amy

If that were the choice, and I’m not sure I buy that it is, I choose artistic fulfillment.

mark

Exactly.  As I said, everything has a definable value.  You just have to find the right formula.

amy

What if you are artistic, and not fulfilled?  Have you just thrown away two million?

mark

Do you feel unfulfilled by your art?

amy

Often.

mark

So let’s value your fulfillment at five hundred thousand.  Maybe we can fill in the rest of that value by making a few sales.

amy

What are you after?

mark

A commission, of course.  If my company is partial owner of the images, perhaps we should get a small percent of sales.  Or maybe I want some artistic fulfillment myself.

Money Lab: The cost of being an artist

One of the things I am interested in exploring in Money Lab is what is the personal economic cost of being an artist.  In other words, I want to compare people of similar education, age and background, and see how they compare to other (non-artists) from New York City.  I am limiting the current exploration to the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx because--well, because I have some data that applies, and going further at this point seems a bit overwhelming.

This will obviously be a limited and unscientific survey (not having the skills to create a true one), but I am hoping it provokes some thought and consideration. Interestingly, Dance NYC had a somewhat corollary survey that is much more developed, specifically of dancers age 21-35.  You can find it here.

Their survey shows how New York dancers truly struggle economically.  Which of course confirms my personal bias, which is to suspect that being any sort of artist costs big wagons full of money.  That comes partly from being from a family of lawyers and comparing my income to theirs.  And Partly from seeing almost all the intelligent, accomplished, educated artists I know struggle for money.  And partly from...well, it must.  C'mon.

But how much?  Can we find a dollar amount per year?  And is that dollar amount the value of art?  I can claim, as I have, that I did not know the cost when I first decided to pursue theater.  But eventually it dawned on me.  And I made a conscious choice to continue.  So in a way I have decided to spend most on my potential income on the one thing that has meant the most to me.

Somehow, realizing that I made the decision makes me feel a bit better.   Would I make the decision again, in college, knowing what I know now?  I'm not sure.  But on the other hand, I can't image a life without theater.  So, maybe...

Money Lab: Food or a flower, what is the value of art?

In honor of Money Lab, I will be posting a series of blog posts about economics and the arts.  Here is my first, examining the question of the basic value of art.

I was taking a cab the other day, and my cab driver asked me if I had any good ideas to help the world. He was collecting.

I work in theater, I said, so all my ideas are about theater. But I do think art can help the world.

He scoffed. If you were starving, he asked, what would you like? Food? Or a flower?

This reminded me of another incident. Some years ago, Soutine’s bakery on the Upper West Side had promised the theater company a free cake for a fundraiser. The day I came to pick it up, the owner reneged. I didn’t understand it was for a theater, she told me. I thought it was a non-profit.

It is a non-profit, I said.

No, she said. Something that does good. Like cancer research. I can’t just give a free cake to anyone who asks.

That conversation dwelled with me for a while. The nature of non-profit theater is that it depends on donations. Personal donations, foundation grants, and government grants, which are a sort of donation from everyone’s tax dollar. Why do we deserve it?

I can say that without it, the world would be lacking. Only the commercial work could survive. Difficult work that examines ideas or advances the art form wouldn’t exist. The world would be a much duller and less joyful place.

To me.  But then again I’m not starving.

This is how I responded to the cab driver: I just directed a play called The Last Cyclist, written in a concentration camp. The people, all the actors there were starving. The play criticized the Nazis, and some of them risked their lives by even rehearsing it. Most of them were murdered. But then, in that moment, they felt alive. Art is a need, a basic need, dating back to the cave drawings. It helped them feel human when they might have been reduced to pure animal needs.

He was not convinced. Yes, sure, it was a distraction. But they would have been better off with some bread.

He went driving off in search of someone with better ideas.

The Economics of Theater, Part VI: The Gamble, a Dream

 I am the proprietor of a restaurant, called The Gamble.  I explain the name comes from 18th century British establishments called gambols.  These “gambols” were filled with liquor, dancing girls, and games of chance.  It is from these old “gambols” that in fact we get the word gamble, I claim.

This is untrue.  But in the dream, I believe it.  That history, along with black and white woodcuts of the old gambols, is printed in the menus.

The place is beautiful, with antique wood tables and vintage taps and vintage gambling tables in the back.  Dealers are ready to play, not for money (because of the gambling laws), but for chips that can lead to free food and drink.  In the next room, women dance the can can.  At alternative times, it features modern burlesque.

I sit with my friends, and around us are emptied bottles of fine wine.

It is a wonderful place, on the top of a tall skyscraper.  I have put all my money into this Gamble, and it is my dream, exactly as I envisioned it.

The reviews have come out, and they have been good.  But somehow, that hasn’t translated into customers.  The place is mostly empty, except for my friends.

Soon, I will be bankrupt.

I realize as I am sitting there, that looking at the money the restaurant is bringing in, there is no way that we can survive. There is no way that I can survive, or avoid personal bankruptcy, short of a miracle, short of something, anything, that changes my fortunes at the last second.

I can’t fold up shop either.  I have put every cent into it, spent my whole life building it.  If I closed, it would amount to financial ruin, regardless, with less hope of last minute salvation.

So, I think…maybe I should just enjoy it.

Maybe I should just look around and think, how amazing it is to be here, now, at this very moment, at a place I love, with people I love.

I wake up.

The Economics of Theater, Part V: Actor, Director, or Playwright

Actor, Director, or Playwright: Which is the worst financial idea?

In a recent New York Times article, Charles Isherwood scooped me (did I ever expect to say that) by writing about the economic difficulties of being a stage actor.  He wrote that stage actors need to supplement their incomes from other sources—namely, shows like Law and Order or other small television and commercial acting gigs.  Because the money made from acting on the stage is so small.

He was being too sunny in his outlook.

What his article overlooked is the great majority of stage actors, who are not working on a salary and who are not receiving significant outside acting income.  They are supplementing their acting habit with their day jobs or by running through their savings.

Using my copy of Theater World, season 2004-2005 (which I have only because it is the year I had my Off-Broadway show, Fairy Tales of the Absurd, but I think it can be at least somewhat representative), I found these statistics:  32 new Broadway productions.  78 new Off-Broadway productions.  Based on those stats, I am going to say that there are about 600 – 1000 working stage actors in the city in a given season.

For Rudolf II, the last show for which I had an open casting call (for two parts, one a young man, one a young woman), I received 600 resumes.

It is conceivable that I could have cast every paying role in the city with those actors alone.  OK, every show would have had nothing but young actors.  And OK, many of them would not be very good.

But some were very good.  I had only time to see 50 – 100 of those actors.  I’m sure there were talented actors I never saw.

If even I eliminated 80% of those applying from even attending my Equity Showcase auditions, what chance does a stage actor have to get paying work?

Of course, the Isherwood’s article does present an upside to being an actor.  There is some supplemental work available.  Even I have done some acting work, and acting is not my main focus.  Most recently, I pretended to have OCD for the sake of some rabbis in training at Yeshiva University.  And yesterday I went for a callback on a non-union commercial gig.

In other words, one can pick up a few bucks here and there.

And I do know some actors who pick up more than a few bucks, who actually make a living at their work.  Maybe from voiceovers, maybe from commercials, maybe from regional theater, but they have managed to make it, in some cases, a well paying career.  Maybe not from the stage work, but from supplemental acting work.


Even if that isn't achieved, one can, conceivably, work at a job full time and also have time to act.  It’s hard, but it’s doable.  I have jokingly referred to my time acting onstage as being on vacation.  One’s main responsibility is oneself.

Which brings me to directing.

Alex Timbers, I have heard, once said that to be a director in New York, one has to have a trust fund.

That is partly because being a director in New York, almost always, is not just being a director.  It is being a director/producer.

I do not have a trust fund.  But I am fortunate in some ways.  My father passed away relatively young, which was not fortunate.  But since he was a lawyer, I inherited some money.  Not by any means a huge amount, but enough that I have been able to use it, over the last ten years, to supplement my sometimes meager income so that I have been able to continue to work.  I would trade it in an instant to have him back.  But it has helped me get through some rocky financial times.  Furthermore, for many years I lived in a family apartment, which meant a relatively modest rent, at least by New York standards.

My money has dwindled, over the years.  Many in my position might have put the money towards retirement.  I have no pension, and since I have mostly worked freelance, I’m not even sure if I will be eligible for Social Security one day.  But instead of the more conservative approach, I have chosen to use the inheritance to help me continue my career.  What will that mean for me one day?  I’m not sure.  What will that mean for me when, sooner rather than later, I run though my savings?  I’m not sure about that either.  Part of what inspired this series is the impulse to stave off that reckoning.

But that inheritance has allowed me to work as a director.  I’m not sure if my father, who was much more conservative in his approach towards money, would be happy about the implicit risk in that decision.  But then again, I think he would have been pleased to see what I’ve accomplished.

The problem with being a director is, of course, there are many fewer jobs in that field than the field of acting.  Using those same Theater World stats I referenced above, there are probably slightly over 100 directing jobs a season.  And many of those directing jobs are taken by the same people over and over again.

The reason why is clear.  One can’t exactly audition to be a director.  Directing jobs happen because one is associated with an institution.  Usually, the institution finds people whose work they know, in some ways.  Whose they’ve worked with at that same institution or, in a rare case, that they’ve seen outside the institution and want to bring in.

With the busy schedule of all theaters, there is not a lot of scouting going on.  But then again, there doesn’t need to be.  There aren’t many open positions, anyway.  Certainly, if a show gets attention, it’s possible that some institutional theater may arrive,. And by attention I don’t mean a rave review in the New York Times, I mean a rave review on the front page of the New York Times, hopefully by at least the 2^nd string reviewer.

And the current 2^nd string reviewer, the above mentioned Charles Isherwood, is not doing much scouting himself these days.

An alternative is to form a theater company, as I have, and make that big enough to either sustain oneself.  A difficult feat.  Possible, but I hope, but very difficult.

I am not just a director, of course, I am also a playwright.

This may be the worst idea of all.

The one advantage of being a playwright, is there is a correlation to the audition process.  One can submit a script.

When I was just out of college, I took a few jobs as a reader.  I worked for New Dramatists, on a prize they handed out at the time.  I worked for the Williamstown Theater Festival.

What I learned was, it is very easy to say no to a script.  And very difficult to say yes.

At the age of 22, my job was to read as many plays as I could and either say no or pass it on.  I couldn’t say yes, of course.  No one would trust a 22 year old to say yes, it had to be passed through many levels to get to that stage.  But I could say no to almost anyone.  I said no the Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen Disch and a number of other playwrights whose names I recognized.

No one second guessed me, when I said no.  There was too much to read.  They second guessed my yeses, though.  Why did you say yes to this, I was asked a few times.

Because I’ve read 30 scripts and I want to say yes to something, I said.

Only say yes if it is definitely, definitely a yes, I was told.

There are a lot of bad plays.  But after a while, my eyes began to blur, and I couldn’t tell what was good or bad anymore.  I couldn’t write anymore, either, my head was filled with other people’s words.  I couldn’t even keep reading.

I quit.

Rather than submitting to slush piles, one can, like me, form one’s own company and use it as a forum for one’s own work.  In publishing, that would be called a vanity press.  But in theater, it is more accepted, because frankly, it’s the only way a lot of new work can be seen at all.  It’s the same in the film world.  If you raise the money and actually are able to mount a show or film your film, there is something of an assumption that maybe it deserves to be seen.

Or one can try the slush pile.  Despite the quantity of slush, theoretically, an unknown writer can have his work win the lottery, get through all the hoops, and get his or her work onstage.

But if there were 110 productions in that Theater World season, and many of them were revivals, and many of them were old playwrights having their newest work mounted, how much room is there for new playwrights?

Ironically, of course, I was officially an Off-Broadway playwright and director that year.  By my analysis, I was one of the few, the elite.

The production lost so much money I wasn’t able to pay myself that year for either job.

There is one upside to being a playwright.  Royalties.  I have gotten royalties a surprising amount of times, most frequently from my translation of Lysistrata, which seems to have gained a cult following of some sort.  It’s not made me rich.  But $500 arriving unexpectedly every, upon occasion, is always a welcome sight.

And sometimes I’ve thought, if I decided to just be a playwright, I could get a day job and still write.  Or…theoretically…I could sell out to tv, which a lot of the more successful playwright seem to do (because, as I may not have mentioned, even the successful ones have a hard time living on a playwright’s wages).

So then, it’s not so bad, right?

And there’s always teaching work, whichever of the three you are (or better, if you are all three at once.)

So then, which is the worst idea?  I know less about the design and stagehand economics, anyone want to chime in on why one those is a terrible idea as well…

The Economics of Theater, Part IV: A Pause for Art

And now, a pause for Art.

I have been thinking for a while of writing a play dealing with economics.  My idea, right now, would be to write a series of sketches, each based on another economic theorist: Keynes, Smith, Marx, Rand, etc.  Of course, my struggles with my own personal economy have been partly the inspiration for that, but one thing that I’ve learned from the recent fiscal troubles is that the field of economics is truly fascinating.  I have started reading whatever I can, listening to Planet Money, Freakonomics, etc.

Or perhaps I will write some and ask some other playwrights to write some of the other sketches.  I’m not sure.  And takers?

Will this idea lead anywhere?  Perhaps.  But since I am writing these essays and theater and art, I felt I might as well try out one, for kicks.  This one’s based on Keynes’ theory that in times of economic hardship, employing someone, even to just dig a ditch and then fill it back up again, is an overall economic good. 


I’ve definitely had day jobs that have felt like I was doing just that…

THE DITCH DIGGER, by JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

PERSON
What are you doing?

DITCH DIGGER

Digging a ditch.

PERSON
Why?

DITCH DIGGER
For the sake of the country.

PERSON
What are you going to do with that ditch when you’re done?

DITCH DIGGER

Gonna fill up the hole.

PERSON
With what?

DITCH DIGGER

Dirt.

PERSON
What dirt?

DITCH DIGGER

Same dirt I took out.

PERSON
Why?

DITCH DIGGER
For the sake of the country.

PERSON
How does that help the country?

DITCH DIGGER

I dunno.  Just does.  Wanna dig?

PERSON
Why would I?

DITCH DIGGER

Pay’s good.

PERSON
How good?

DITCH DIGGER

Good enough.

PERSON
I don’t like digging.

DITCH DIGGER

Nor me.

PERSON
Why don’t you do something else?

DITCH DIGGER

They won’t pay for that.

PERSON
How come?

DITCH DIGGER
Some man came along and told ‘em that ditch digging would save the economy.

PERSON
Just ditch digging?

DITCH DIGGER

He didn’t say.  They’re keeping to the ditch digging.  Just in case.

PERSON
What would you like to do?

DITCH DIGGER

Me?  I’m a clown.

PERSON
A what?

DITCH DIGGER

Clown.

PERSON
Like…with the big shoes, and the red nose?

DITCH DIGGER

Sort of.  Don’t use the shoes or the nose though.

PERSON
Then what makes you a clown?

DITCH DIGGER

Clowning.

PERSON
Is that worth more than ditch digging?

DITCH DIGGER

Makes people laugh.  Sometimes.  Makes people think.

PERSON
People like to laugh and think.

DITCH DIGGER

Some do.  Some like to dig ditches.  Some don’t like much of anything, at all.

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

What?

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

Can’t.  I’ve got a job.

PERSON
But you’re just going to fill up this ditch later.

DITCH DIGGER

That’s what they’re paying me for.

PERSON
What if you didn’t dig at all?  Would they even notice?

DITCH DIGGER

Not sure.

PERSON
Clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

How much are you paying?

PERSON
I don’t have much.

DITCH DIGGER

Me neither.

PERSON
Don’t you miss clowning?

DITCH DIGGER

Yes.

PERSON
Don’t you want to clown?

DITCH DIGGER

Yes.

PERSON
Then clown for me.

DITCH DIGGER

Can’t.  Got a job.
(Pause.)
What do you do?

PERSON
I paint pictures.

DITCH DIGGER

Does anyone buy them?

PERSON
I’m afraid to show them to anyone.

DITCH DIGGER

Do you think anyone would buy them?

PERSON
Maybe.  Not many people have money, though.  And there are a lot of people who paint pictures.
(Pause.)

DITCH DIGGER

Want a shovel?

PERSON
Yes.

The Economics of Theater, Part III: Theater Companies

Once, there was only Broadway.

This is not true.  But it is a commonly believed untruth, and a convenient starting point.  Of course, there has always been something besides Broadway, even in its earliest days.  But.  Essentially.

Once, there was only Broadway.

Slowly, a new movement formed, a movement for less traditional, more alternative theater.  The movement grew.  It called itself Off-Broadway.

Those shows were less attended, and less press paid attention, but some did.  Enough.  And the people who did the work grew their theaters, though grants and patronage and box office, so that a core group could make a salary for their work. They became institutions.  Like all institutions, they tried to emulate their own successes. 

Others saw those institutions and rejected what they stood for. Slowly, a new movement formed, a movement for less traditional, more alternative theater.  The movement grew.  It called itself Off-Off-Broadway.

Those shows were less attended, and less press paid attention, but some did.  Enough.  And the people who did the work grew their theaters, though grants and patronage and box office, so that a core group could make a salary for their work. They became institutions.  Like all institutions, they tried to emulate their own successes. 

A new generation arrived, and it saw huge commercial theater on Broadway.  It saw non profit institutions as well that had grown large enough to also be on Broadway.  It saw other large institutions that were the bulk of Off-Broadway.  And it saw institutions, mostly set up during the 60’s wonderful companies like LaMama or P. S. 122 or the Wooster Group or the Ontological.

Slowly, it grew other institutions, which crowded in besides the old.  HERE managed to add itself to the mix  Soho Rep.  The Ohio.  Tiny theaters smaller than the other institutions that still managed to work at least a few salaries out.

But people kept coming.  And the city was crowded.

Even smaller theaters appeared, sometimes just to disappear.  Nada.  Collective Unconscious.  The Present Company.

The Present Company still exists of course, in theory.  But it has, in essence, disappeared into the behemoth of its own making, the New York Fringe Festival.  Which in itself created a model for how a modern theater company could find a way to pay its administrative staff.  By grouping hundreds of smaller theater companies under one giant umbrella.

And still more theaters appeared.  But now there was Broadway.  There was Off-Broadway.  There were the Off-Off-Broadway institutions.  There were festivals. 

How can a new theater get noticed, among all that?  How can it get press attention? How can it get grants?

How, essentially, can it make the money to at the very least pay the people spending their lives running it.

And really, with all the other theater going on, is it even needed?  I barely have the time or money to keep up with a fraction of the theater I want to see, and it’s my passion.  Maybe there’s just too much.  Too many plays I can’t see.  Too many books I can’t read.  Too many art exhibits I can’t attend.  Too many artists.  Period. 

Rocco Landesman said recently that there was a supply and demand problem.  He’s right, of course, though his statement that there are 5.7 million administrators and only 2 million artists is insane, of course. 

What he may have meant is, only 2 million that seem to be able to make any money at it, just as pure artists.

But there is a supply and demand problem.  Too much theater.  Too few audience members.  No wonder it’s so hard to make a living.  EVERYONE ELSE, GO AWAY!

Even in the mythical utopia we know as “Europe” this is a problem.  But in the American reality, and in particular in New York, it has gone out of control. 

And yet…we don’t go away.  Because somewhere in the midst of this mass of work, many somewheres, multiple times over, good and important work is being created.  Important only if you accept the premise that art is important, that theater is important, that creation and thought expressed on stage makes us, as individuals and society, better in some way.  Helps our ideas evolve.  Fulfills one of our most primal instincts, for I do believe that drama is a basic, ancient instinct, and that from those dramatic enactments have sprung humanity’s greatest social and moral advances.

And if you believe that, as I am cursed to, then you can’t go away.  Not if you believe you have something you must contribute to that conversation.

I have run my theater company for almost 20 years now.  In about a year and a half, it will be the 20^th anniversary of our first show, which I produced immediately out of college.

I should be excited about that fact.  I am told that it is a milestone to be proud of.  But I also dread it.

Because we should have a bigger budget.  We should be getting more grants.  We should be bigger.  I should be paid a full salary.

Sometimes, I feel as though I have failed. When Havel flew my to the Czech Republic this summer and I met theater artist after theater artist and he praised me and talked about my theater company and my work, I smiled and thought, if only you know.  It’s a house of cards.  It’s a sham.  It’s something I made up, and it’s only real because I pretend that it’s real, and a few people, actors, designers, The New York Times, they all pretend with me.

And yet…we are getting grants.  And we seem to keep getting a little more each year, despite the economy.  We seem to be recognized a little more each year.  Really, I didn’t devote my time in full to the theater company until 2001, the year of our Ionesco Festival.  And since then our budget has increased, we have received a lot more press, and I would even say the overall quality of our work has consistently improved.

Or at least we’ve had a little more money to realize our dreams.

And it is doable.  Despite all the other theaters, I do see, somewhere, the bright and shiny possibility.  Or maybe because of them, because I realize that some of the companies that I work with, side by side, are able to get just a little more funding.  Not much more.  But enough.

In another business, those people would be enormously wealthy.  The top of their profession.  Which means, in theater, they get by.

Getting to that level of funding will mean more time devoted to grant writing, and, ironically, probably less time devoted to art.   That is the conundrum of running a theater company.  Sometimes it feels as if you can either make good work or fund good work, but not both.

It helps when you have some people helping out, and recently, I’ve had that too.  Board members.  My friend and fellow theater delusional Patrice Miller.

And if I can just find the time to write all the grants, put together all the shows, do all the accounting, solicit all the donors, then I do think that I may be able to reach that point.

I am quite sure we are able to do impressive work with people who are impressive artists.  And yes, in magical “Europe,” money would already be flowing.

Now if only I didn’t also need to look for a little money on the side…

Oh Europe, oh Europe.  How I love the utopian vision I have created for myself about you.

The Economics of Theater, Part II: Funding

My theater is shovel ready.

My theater is ready to beat the Russians to the moon.

I was going to write today more about matters more personal, but the recent budget released by the Obama administration has moved me to talk about the economics of theater in a political sense.  And of course it is personal, for at the same time my theater company is trying to expand, politicians are once again treating theater like it’s a frivolous indulgence.  It is not.  It is an economic engine.  My theater is more economically efficient than infrastructure, more educational per dollar spent than education.

Do I have the studies to show it?  There are a few.  Every impact study done has shown that the return is much greater than every dollar spent.  Google the words “impact” and  “economic” and “theater” or maybe the “arts” and you’ll find them.  Many were done in England or in Canada or elsewhere overseas.  But the ones from the U. S. show the same thing.   The arts give back more than they take.  Much more.

Let’s examine one reason that it’s true.  The so-called shovel test is truer for theater than almost any stimulus around.  Give any of the thousands of theater companies the money now, and you will see that money ready to be put to work.  There are people waiting to create.  And you will not only see every dollar in the work, it will seem like, magically, each dollar has become ten.

My theater is ready to make this country great.

So why does my country hate her so?

Give theater the money, and you will find workers who are willing and eager to work well beyond the amount that they are paid.  You will find diligent, industrious workers and entrepreneurs, small businesses that feed businesses big and small.

Do you want a man to dig a ditch and refill it, Mr. Keynes?  Put an audience member in front of us and we’ll go all night.

I don’t ask this country to invest in theater because it is the right thing to do.  I think it is, but put that aside.  I don’t ask because it feeds our country’s soul.  It think it does, but put that aside as well.  I don’t ask because art can create a bridge between nations.  I think it can, but put that aside.

I ask because it is a good investment.  One of the best around.  I ask you not to do it out of the goodness of your heart, but for the sake of your own bottom line.  Art pays for itself.  Art feeds the economy.

This may seem confusing, because artists, as a whole are poor.  This is because, when the transaction happens, we take most of our fee in fulfillment, rather than just cash.

The cash is great, don’t get me wrong.  But we are willing to do much more work for much less because of the economic value we place on following our passion.

Perhaps we shouldn’t.  That is another subject.  Perhaps we should be like investment banks that take the cash, and a lot of it.  Perhaps our transactions should create nothing in and of themselves so that we need the cash in order to justify the time.

Or perhaps we should be somewhere in between.

But as it stands, we are ready to be exploited for the cause.  Give us the money, and we will work.  Just a little of it.  Just enough so we can manage, and we’ll do it.  We can’t help it, God help us.

And then Hell, we’ll pay it back from the after show drinks alone.  Sometimes quite literally.  Between the cast and audience, just the business created for the bars and restaurants may pay our tiny tab.  The rest is extra.

No rational economic theory, not one, can show why cutting funding to the arts helps the economy.  No rational budget, not one, can show any real impact on the overall debt gained by cutting our already tiny budget more than it has been.  President Obama, you made a plea, an impassioned one, about the need to invest in our country.  The need to invest in our future. .  The need to invest in jobs.

Invest in mine.  Invest in ours.  Invest in our economy.

We need to begin making people more aware it’s true.  We need to place the information on our programs, on our websites, on our blogs.  3LD has told me that from now on they are putting the number of people who worked on the show right in each program.  That’s a start. 

For my show Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which recently played at 3LD, there were over 30 people working on the show.  We would enter between 9 and10am.  We would leave sometime between 11pm and 1am.  That excludes the nights when we worked on the set through the night.  Usually, there would be 5-6 people during the day there, then 15-20 in the evening.

People traveled in to see us.  Hotels, airfare.  People ate and drank before and after.  And though UTC61 was not able to afford paying people much, we paid at least a small something to everyone.

And we created something.

How much did we receive from the state?  A little over $4,000.  We had other funding, from foundations and donors, but if you take away box office, you can say we relied on about $15,000 worth of giving, including the state funding.

How much did we give in return?

We can try to reach out, but we cannot reach out alone.

We need an advocate, more than one.  We need to help out by changing perceptions.  But we need to bridge the gap.  We need to make someone believe, enough to speak out not just in whispers in crowded rooms and not just our of sense of duty but out of a sense of passion, out of a sense that every dollar spent does the work of ten.  We need studies, more than we can fund ourselves.  We need editorials.  We need a speech in Congress.  We deserve one.

Well somebody, anybody, stand up and speak for our cause?

The Economics of Theater, Part 1

Many years ago I made a terrible financial mistake.  I decided to work in theater.

I could have, quite frankly, done most anything.  I certainly had the skills to become a lawyer, and investment banker, or a doctor (though being squeamish about blood might have been a holdback there).  And I have to say that all of them were also interesting to me.  So was being a scientist, a psychologist, a teacher, or any of a number of steadily paying jobs.

At the time, I made jokes about choosing to become a starving artist.  The truth was, however, I thought of that as a temporary hardship.  I had a sort of confidence in my abilities that told me, that if I had talent and brains I would eventually make money.  After all, I went to the theater, didn’t I?  I saw people on stage.  These people were professionals.  They were getting paid.  If I was also talented and smart, I could also get paid.

I was, for the most part, terribly deceived.

This is the truth: the industry is full of talented, intelligent people who barely make a dime.  That there is so little money available, and such a huge pool of talent, that in fact the probability is that an intelligent, talented artist will barely make a dime.

This is not a hard and fast rule, of course.  There is a very small percentage of people who work in theater who get paid decently.  There is also a small percentage of people who win the lottery.  The wise man does not make the lottery his career.

Unless…there is another economic benefit to playing the lottery that is unseen.  And in the lottery that is theater, there is.

What brings up these musings?  I have reached a point in my life that, when I was young and considering working in theater, I would have found encouraging.  I work on exciting projects.  I just closed a show that I was very proud of artistically and which was sold out, after receiving good reviews in major publications. I have been reviewed well multiple times in the Times, the Village Voice, Time Out, and a myriad of other journals I consider important.  I have worked with my heroes (and yes, the Václav Havel relationship has been particularly rewarding for me) and been considered a colleague and a friend.  I have seen words I’ve written come to physical life before me, in front of an appreciative crowd.  I have put together large, significant festivals.  I have written/directed Off-Broadway.  I have run a theater company for nearly 20 years.  I have written books that have been published, sold, and read by an appreciative audience.  I have imagined a work, and it has become flesh.

And often, it gives me great joy.

On my next tax return, the amount noted for income will be smaller than when I was a college student with a summer job.

How am I able to sustain myself?  Why have I chosen to live in this manner?

Both are complicated questions, and relevant ones as I try to discover how to continue to sustain myself.

So I am going to be writing a few blog entries on this, both for myself and others I know going through a similar point in their lives. I haven’t written blog entries for a while, and probably won’t for a while after—too many other projects.  But this will be, should I manage to complete it, a series of sorts, about theater and economics. The other blog entries will have other answers, or maybe other sorts of questions, probably in more pure economic terms.

But this is the simplest answer to begin with:  I have a calling.  Perhaps it is pretentious to say so, but since my whole adult life has been devoted to that belief, I claim that right.  I mean it in the way a clergy person has a calling, for being in a theater, for me, is what I imagine being in a church or synagogue is for the devoutly religious.

Years ago, I saw a scene in a movie that epitomized the current dilemma for me.  It was a fun movie, if not one with any particular aspirations to greatness. It was a comedy that was a bar joke:  about priest and a rabbi--these being Edward Norton and Ben Stiller in a semi wacky Upper West Side comedy called Keeping the Faith.  It was filmed blocks away from where I live.  I watched it because of that and because I was dating a rabbi at the time

Edward Norton was experiencing a crisis in faith.  He went to an older priest, as I remember (and I haven’t seen this movie since, so perhaps the way I am recounting this tale is off…) and told him he was considering leaving the church.   The older priest told him, when you commit to the church, it is like committing to a marriage.  You don’t do it once.  You have to keep on doing it, again and again.

I feel like I have at times sacrificed my romantic relationships to theater—which is not to say, as I write this on Valentine’s Day and happen, this year, to be single, that being single is a necessary condition.  But it has made certain relationships harder.  I have probably sacrificed having children to theater.  There are those who have managed children and theater, but they seem few to me.  And I have most definitely sacrificed future financial security to theater.

And each time, I had to decide where my commitment lies.

Time for me to recommit again.  I am in love.

Happy Valentines Day, theater.  Don’t worry, I’m not expecting chocolate.  By this point, I know you too well.

I’m OK with that.  But if you want to slip me a couple of bucks for putting out, I won’t take too much offense.