A collaborator of mine, the poet, playwright, and activist Kristiana Rae Colón, once asked me: “What would a people-centered theatrical process look like?” As a director, it was definitely one of those record-scratching moments. I had thought my process was great, that the rehearsal room was a joyous one. And while it did have its moments, I realized it didn’t truly center people; I was focused on telling the story. By operating from the assumption that everyone in the room was there to tell the story at all costs, the rooms I created required a sacrifice for the good of the play both, from myself and those working with me. After all, the show must go on, right? I have harmed people, or, more specifically, I have allowed those under my leadership to be harmed by the steadfast practicing of this adage that every theatremaker is taught as Truth.
As Maya Angelou once said: “When you know better, do better.” I am no longer willing to sacrifice the artists I work with or myself on the altar of the theatre, but Chicago, Illinois storefront theatre, the community I work in, is still built to propagate the product at all costs. With the help of my collaborators, inspired by the work of harm reduction within activist communities, I’ve sought out a new rehearsal process that reduces harm and centers people.
I was first introduced to the term “harm reduction” when working with playwright and dramaturg Tanuja Jagernauth. While it is often associated with social policy practices like the needle exchange program, harm reduction has become a more broadly used term across industries. I understand it to mean tools, agreements, or policies that are designed to lessen the negative social or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors. Basically, how can we plan for harm? And, when it is impossible or undesirable to eliminate the harmful behavior, situation, person, or environment, how can it be managed and reduced?
In the theatre, we engage with traumatic and potentially triggering subject matter on a regular basis, and often with relative strangers, too. As our shared consciousness around the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements increases, when equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives sprout up at every organization, we have begun to use certain terms—like safe spaces, accountability, and restorative justice—before gaining a practical understanding of the concepts and how to navigate them. In our quest to create “safe spaces,” we’ve forgotten that what’s safe for one person is often unsafe for another.
The only reason I even questioned the term myself was because I was the director in a process where I did everything I could think of to make the space “safe” and harm still occurred. There were check-ins and check-outs, a non-equity deputy, a complaint path. I tried so desperately to get it right but was impossible for me to know everything that could potentially harm everyone and my failure to plan for that reality left everyone vulnerable. My sole ownership of our collective safety compounded that harm. I set myself up to believe that I alone could and should be responsible for every person’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I have found this kind of well-intentioned and overly controlling leadership to be unsustainable and unsuccessful.
In my practice, I’ve been seeking to collectively define “harm” in our spaces. This first step is vital. Once the definition is established there are tools we can all use to help reduce the possibility for harm. Most importantly, we can create a structure for how we collectively manage it when it occurs.
How can we plan for harm? And, when it is impossible or undesirable to eliminate the harmful behavior, situation, person, or environment, how can it be managed and reduced?
The Tools
Extended Rehearsal Schedule
In my particular theatre community, the Chicago storefront one, most artists get paid stipends for their work. A large stipend is $500 for actors and $750 for designers, directors, and stage managers. This is nowhere near minimum wage for the hours spent actively in meetings/rehearsals/tech/performances, not to mention the time spent outside of those hours preparing, memorizing, designing, etc. If an artist spends forty-ish hours a week at a day job and twenty-five to thirty hours a week working on a play, when are they making food for themselves, doing laundry, going to the grocery store, commuting, and sleeping? Producers and directors can alleviate some of the stress by creating schedules that work better with these realities.
My proposal is to reduce the number of hours we rehearse weekly but extend the number of weeks we rehearse. I’ve been experimenting with three rehearsals per week, with a day off in between each—two evenings, one weekend day. This allows for fourteen to sixteen hours per week. For example: over the course of six weeks, we rehearse Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 pm to 10:30 pm and Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm. This yields us a total ninety rehearsal hours. These hours tend to be more productive because the artists have a chance to think about the play, memorize lines, absorb notes and changes, and get some rest. It also means if someone is sick, they’ll be more likely to miss one rehearsal instead of two or three. Most non-equity companies aren’t paying artists a weekly fee and they rent rehearsal rooms by the day or hour. It costs producers no additional money to make the lives of their artists more liveable.
Comments
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Tara, thank you so much for your thoughtful writing here. You have me re-thinking my own rehearsal practices.