Well, I don't really believe that at all, but there's some truth there. I always feel bad that we can't pay our actors more, and I feel beholden to everyone who works for me as if they're doing me a favor. And I do believe that. These are people who have trained, and worked hard, and our devoting their time to make my dreams come true, so they deserve to be compensated for that.

It's like someone told me after I was paid well for doing a one-person show. "$xxx dollars for one hour?," I said. "No," he replied "$xxx for all the hours you've put in before this." That's right.

Still, who's getting what? Who owes who? We have a company of theatre pros here, and we work harder than anyone else to put up the shows. The company is the group who does the real shit work, in addition to acting and sound designing and what not. They put in extra hours. But, in our model, we get paid the least, if we get paid at all. We pay the most important bills, then we pay the guest artists, and by then we've usually emptied our wallets. Sometimes people even have to wait a couple months to get paid because we've lost so much. And that stinks, and I feel really bad about it. But that happens, that's part of the risk. Not to mention all that money we spent on gas, and meals out, and other items that were necessary in order to make the show happen. In this model, since it's our company, doing the show is our thing (our goal, our dream, our job?) and everyone else is doing us a favor. For us it's a hobby, for them it's a job. Is that right?

But then we apply for grants based largely on the idea that we're going to pay artists more, including ourselves. Art is not a job, but we try to make it one. Will it be better then?

Don quotes Scott Walters here:

There is nothing heroic about allowing oneself to be exploited.

Yes. That's right. We want to get paid so we're not being exploited, but in our system, is anyone being exploited? By whom? Am I exploiting the actors who work for me? I hope they would tell me if I was. And certainly they'd say something about it, right? I do know of some theatres that definitely exploit some actors, places where they work 18-hour days for the chance to be on stage for 2 minutes once during the season. But wait --- those actors know what they're doing, right? It's not about the 2 minutes, it's about the line on their C.V. and the possible connections and such, right?

Well, that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

Don't some community theatres charge money for participation? Or did I make that up? I really thought I'd heard of that.

At Mission Paradox, Adam writes that your budget tells a story.

"Don't tell me what matters to you. Show me your budget and what is important to you will become clear."

Actors are important to me, so that better show in my budget, right. But would those actors rather I pay them less so they can perform in a more "respectable" venue. Would they rather get $25 dollars more or have a nicer costume?

Anyway. There's no resentment here, but it's an odd balance that we work around here. Art is not a job.

UPDATE: Tony had a great comment on Don's post that I missed the first time around.

I think the only point in my life that I truly and deeply hated most of theatre was when I relied on it to eat. Having to take any show that came along simply because it paid meant doing a lot of shitty shows.

Now that I don't rely on it to eat (or buy diapers thank God.) I can be far more selective in the projects I take on, and my work is far better for it.

And here's a question ... what do you think of the actor who does the projects he wants to and doesn't worry about the money as compared to the actor who only takes paying gigs on principle. (I'm not talking about a full-time actor who relies on work for bread, I'm talking about "amateur" actors who nevertheless won't do a show unless there's money.)

And so now I'm back to this again ... is the goal a model in which we can make theatre and quit our day-jobs? Where do these things fall on the priority list - quitting your day-job, doing exactly the shows you want to, "impressive" production values and venues, high artistic standards.

I bet I could build a model that pays well, makes art that doesn't cost very, has low production values, and packs the house. But, I think I'd have to sacrifice my artistic standards to do it. Thoughts?