ep36. Being a Stagemanager | EquityElections - West Park Park Bench Podcast
10:01AM Jun 6, +0000
Speakers:
Caron Lyon
Keywords:
committee
equity
stage
manager
contract
union
buyout
work
entertainment industry
important
management
producer
podcast
feel
fringe
question
world
year
media
put
At my core I am a stage manager. I started my career as a stage manager and no matter how hard I fight and try and explore and adventure at my core, I am a stage manager.
There was a reason I left stage management to explore this other world beyond stage management, and that is that I had no self worth. And I think it's very common I believe, within stage management and especially roles within Theatre and the entertainment industry that are service roles.
This is quite often the case. Now. There's a perverse reason for this. It's nothing to do with impostor syndrome. It is a fundamental truth. I believe that as a stage manager, the better I am at my job, the more invisible I become. It is my job to not be seen. And although I say it myself, I'm a very good stage manager. But it does mean that I'm predominantly invisible. And even 10 years later where I've tried to break free, I have discovered self worth. But I do fundamentally get the most satisfaction out of my work when I am least visible. Which again, perversely means I am constantly left in a position where people don't really know what I do.
I am standing in the 2023-25 committee elections as a stage management candidate for Equity's committees, Got that over at the beginning, because yes this episode.
Welcome to episode 36 of the West Park Park Bench Podcast. And it is about the Equity Elections. They come round every year. They come round every year but with a twist so one year, it's committee elections. So the industrial committee's are Screen and New Media, Variety Circus and Entertainers, Stage and then there are specialty committees where you've got Audio, Stage Management, Directors and Designers, Dancers and Choreographers and then the equalities committee so you've got the LGBT committee. You've got the women's committee and the deaf and disabled committee. I'm sure there's ones I've missed and I apologise I am going to try and do a more in depth probably live stream about the committee's with the booklet in my hands so that I can go through each committee and just have a bit of a wax lyrical, but it's really an important time of year for the committee's and it's the committee's that give Equity, its eyes and ears on the ground of the working populace.
There is a sense within equity that we want to make conditions for members good enough for you to feel comfortable to also find work finding work is an important dialogue. But finding work is not Equity's job Equity does not find you a job. And that I think is is quite fundamental and quite hard sometimes to wrap your head around that it is there for for the working industry and it's our jobs, for our careers to get ourselves into a place to be working professionals to be able to contribute back to the Union.
I kind of feel that that's what happened to me. I worked 15 years as a stage manager on equity contracts. I was fortunate that my very first contract was an Equity contract. So I didn't know. I didn't know. The rest of the was my Yes, I mean, I always see my career started with an Equity contract. And I did a lot of amateur performing beforehand. Seems so far away now. And I for a summer before I had my first contract, I worked with the Little Theatre in Nottingham and kind of had my first taste of coming out of college into the world. But it went by so fast that when I applied for the work that I did get, which was stage manager with Forest Forge. I did that job for a year and then went to London fringe. So it was and then I, I was.. It was a different world. I mean it was a world where you could sign on I think I've said this in this podcast before you could sign on and you could get housing benefit and the fringe theatres kind of understood that and they would give you grace to be able to go and sign on when you needed to. And it wasn't questioned.
That is no more I don't know how people manage now and actually saying that the producers diploma that I did from November 2021 to march 2022. Created diploma in producing with Chris Grady and the Chris Grady Org. They had their graduation for the cohort that came after DipCP3, so DipCP4, and they did for their graduation piece, a conversational discussion and the main question that really sticks in my mind is how do you develop a career in the industry, in this case is a producer after the age of 25. And that question initially was, what happens after 25 and as I listened, it was the initiatives and the internships and the funds that push new writers and emerging artists and young artists up to the age of 25 and there's a lot of funding in that arena where people will start a company and they will target those particular income streams, to then find the people to fit those criteria for them to draw down the money. After 25 It's kind of an adult world and that kind of mid career where you kind of on your own and from 25 to 35 that is your making break if you're still in the industry at 35. I think you can you've made it. As a point I think actually in this context. If if you get to 35 and you're still working in the entertainment industry, for me getting to 30 and realising that actually I might want to have kids is what derailed my career because I felt that I had to put my eggs... I had to split my career path and I kind of stopped really focusing on just being a stage manager and started to think about what my life was going to be and yeah, I've been wondering that ever since.
So why, why do I want to be on the committee? Most people who are still here at this point, thank you very much. And it's unlikely that you're anything to do with Equity or the committee structure or you're listening to this years in advance, years in the future. Why why is it important for me to be on committees? It's important especially as a stage manager, because as a stage manager, I rarely get to work or now as a creative producer, or digital stage manager, or the one that came through my head today when I was trying to think about how I might explain to business networking to expand my revenue stream, Media and Events Producer. Because whether it's Zoom in the Room, whether it's a podcast, whether it's getting a YouTube channel started, whether it's, you know, helping someone find ways of having a media stream to shedule their media. That's kind of what I produce really. And being on the committee means that I get to meet nine people who, like me have stood for election and been elected. I get to meet these nine people through a period of two years and get a sense of what the industry is for those nine people and you get a real spread. The people themselves that join these committees don't really see themselves as anything special. And again, I think that is what I find very special about being on a committee that you're nine people who want to have a dialogue that will ask the question, What difference can we make? What difference can we make? There's some documentation that is maintained by the organiser of the committee. Karim Jalali is currently the stage manager organiser and having that foundation, he only does the things that we kind of exploring and also bringing to us all of the things from the other committees.
So it is it's a real, I think it's a privilege to be in that position where you can I think it's four meetings a year. So it's not a big commitment to go down and talk about what's going on being part of the industrial negotiations. There's projects that if the committee gel will try and deliver So, over the last six years, there's been a push to try and create a buyout calculator. And that buy out calculator. I'm so pleased this still a thing. It's still something that's been strived to be created because it is so important. I think with industrial contracts when people see the minimums, they don't realise it's a whole step, other payments that are wrapped up within the contract. And if you're going to be bought out of a contract, that is an equity negotiated contract, I think that is clear within the entertainment industry, and buyouts when I talk about buyouts and when people connected with the the industrial component of the industry. If you are part of a company that can issue you an Equity contract, it is that in which you are being bought out of and that includes not holiday pay, you cannot buy out holiday pay the holiday pay has to be your wage plus whatever holiday pay gets calculated on the time you work.
There are other components. So, you know, missed meal breaks is a thing in the entertainment industry. Overnight breaks is a thing in the entertainment industry and you're being bought out of those if you choose buyout fee. So what is a sensible buyout fee? And that is what these calculators really do. There's two sides of them. One, you can put in what you've been offered, and it tells you, after working so many weeks, how, whether it's good. And the other part of it is using it as a time sheet. So you put in all the hours that you work, it calculates your stipends, it calculates your extra fees, and then at the end of the week, it tells you what you would have earned if you were on contract.
And then if there's a difference between... your breakdown of your buyout and your weekly wage from the sheet, you should be able to go to your organisation and say actually you owe me money and Equity would stand by you and get that money for you.
So there's just ridiculous stuff that sticks in my head of why it's been important for me to be part of that Equity mechanism that is industry professionals asking questions.
There's always up in this podcast where there's a pause for a dog and a walker to go past. And it gives me opportunity to pause if I've ended up rambling and pick up where I left off if I have not, and I kind of feel that I had been rambling,
so I'm actually going to look at bringing this to a close.
So if you know any Equity members or you are an equity member, please do use your votes. Vote because the people you're voting for are the eyes and ears of the Union. Without the committee's the union is just members of staff that are union professionals. They have applied and work for Equity, the entertainments Union, but all of them deep down or the majority of them are politics professionals and people who have studied negotiation and contracts and they are the skill and the talent that we have, and we attract to the Union, but they can only really understand what they're negotiating for, if we give them the knowledge and the data, and that can be, you know, inviting union reps to your place of work also means you to understand what the different sectors are in the entertainments union, because it isn't just for actors. Equity is not the union for actors. It represents actors, but it also represents directors, designers, choreographers, dancers, circus artists, comedians, burlesque performers. And then any performer that works in any of those that is on the LGBT spectrum. There is a women's committee looking at women's equality and women's place in the industry. There's the deaf and disabled committee that is working towards finding parity in equality and equity within the workplace, but also within performance environments. And then, of course, I haven't even touched on the branch structure, which is all new and shiny, and I've probably talked about previously, but it's an important thing to me with with the way the world is right now. I don't feel that... my vote doesn't matter. When I go to the polling station, and I put the cross doesn't mean anything, it doesn't feel like it has any value whatsoever. Except that I do it because it's my democratic, right to be able to do so. But do I feel that it really makes a difference? Not really. Do I feel that being a member of equity makes a difference? Yeah, I do. I really do. And I just, I'm not as well known, or working in an environment where people know me, a lot of the other stage managers that are standing have their own communities around them. As an independent stage manager and creative producer working within the performing arts sector, within the fringe, and independent and working with emerging artists I really don't have people around me that know me as a stage manager, and that might actually vote for me. So please put that vote. On that paper, get it back. I will put the links in the description for I think it's the fifth of July is closing date. But yeah, just that it's just just important, I'm just going to blather for the last couple of seconds to say just how much Equity means to me and actually having a voice. It's not always a voice that is readily heard. And those that have been part of Equity, especially recently will know what a battle that has been. But that battle, you need to be in it to win it. And you need to be part of an organisation to be able to be part of it. And that is what it is for me. I'm not particularly happy at the moment with some of the management decisions, or at least the speed in which those management decisions have taken place. But generally, I realised that away from that central core are members and members in the regions and members who are working members who are struggling to make ends meet in this standard of living crisis. I hope I can bring some of the Equity core to the region as well.
So just in case anyone's got to the end, I just want to really thank those that proposed me. So Luke John Emmett down in Bristol, awesome stage manager technician, and also Catherine Harmer, who I met recently, who is part of the Equity East Midlands branch and I'm so grateful to her to give me not only a local nomination, but a local female nomination. So thank you both.