Champion us or lose us – why producers must go the extra mile for backstage staff

On 28th July, the Arts Council CEO Derren Henley announced additional resources to fund arts projects “with a rolling open-access budget of £75m between now and March 2021  [and] will prioritise applications that maximise employment opportunities”.

Although the National Lottery Project Grant is not a new funding initiative, the Arts Council has increased its budget to £75m in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The relationship with my future employers – artistic directors, producers, writers, festivals, venues –  has unexpectedly become the focus of frustration during my unemployed captivity, as I find myself in month six without any work (therefore, income), and absolutely none on the horizon.

By that I mean none of my regular clients has any projects planned for the immediate or foreseeable future and therefore I am not in any discussion with any of them about when I can return to work.

Through the government Self-Employment Income Support Scheme I have received only 10% of my projected income for the year.

There have been no conversations about teams being pulled together, whether it be for this year or next year.

Don’t leave us cast adrift

When I was asked, around the month three mark, “How are you doing?”, as a self-employed freelance technical stage manager, I likened my situation to being on a desert island.

Not the type of desert island where the sand is white, the water is crystal clear and all you can do is dip your toes in and refresh with a coconut.

This desert island has several rusty old shopping trolleys buried in the mud, seagulls are fighting over shell carcasses and Kirstie and Lauren have forgotten to give me my bible.

From the outside, no one can quite comprehend the reality we are all facing – the theatre biz is a small industry. We all know someone who knows someone, it’s not six degrees of separation, it’s two, at a push. I know you through someone I worked with three years ago, on that tour, in that theatre, you know the one?

Stage managers are nuts and bolts

My entire career relies on theatre and event makers to create work and insert in their budget a line that says “stage manager”. Usually this section of the budget for “creative team and crew” has already been carved out to its bones, because most funding won’t cover a stage management department for a week’s run at the King’s Head Theatre.

Or will it? Are funding applicants afraid the Arts Council will laugh their application out of the room if they propose their designer might need an assistant? Or their lighting designer needs an electrician and a programmer, or the set designer needs a scenic artist, a carpenter and a logistics manager?

I can’t tell you how many shows and events I’ve worked on where there has been no production manager – none! So it usually falls down to the stage manager (ie me), who, luckily, has quite an extensive technical knowledge to drag a show to its technical rehearsal while baby-sitting the venue.

I would like to make sure my fellow theatre makers know: you are the gate-keepers of income for freelance theatre folk and we are the nuts and bolts, the oil that will help grease your creative machine.

We don’t ask for much, only a fair fee and reasonable working terms; in exchange you will have the most dedicated and supportive team to call upon to realise your dream.

Think outside the box to save workforce

Hundreds, thousands of us are out here on standby waiting to help you. According to my union Bectu, there are 800 freelance backstage workers in their London branch alone, which doesn’t include the workers on the West End.

We want to share our expertise with you and we thrive on working in challenging situations and working into the unknown. We’re willing to work unsociable hours, and all with a smile on our face because, without a shadow of a doubt, we love what we do. That “can’t get enough”, “hot”, “burns fast and bright” type of love.

I need to know that there are producers out there who are willing to get out far, far beyond their comfort zones and budget templates to save the workforce. Theatre is about creating the impossible and being savoured forever, but it’s also the roof we put over our heads and food we feed our families.

It is fragile and delicate, it desperately needs some nurturing before the core goes dark. Landmark theatres around the country are collapsing in on themselves, these spaces are lost for now, the people who worked there are lost and cast up on this shopping trolley beach with the rest of us.

If we have no space, and if all our toilets are going to be locked away with the administrators, then where are we going to put on our shows? We need to see venues as our collective responsibility – how can we share our literal concrete resources to help each other make work?

Arts Council has the money that will pay my mortgage next month. I am relying on my producer colleagues to think outside the black box and extract it from them.

When producers and production managers put their budgets together, the line for stage management (and design, costume, lighting, sound, AV to name a few) needs to expand to ensure all of us freelancers, at all stages of our careers, can be included and survive this.

Are you sure you don’t need a wigs department for that one-night comedy special? When theatre comes back she needs to shine and glitter in all her saturated glory. Sequins need to be used like sequins have never been used before.

Ever wanted to play with 3D projection mapping in your set design? Now is your chance and I know half a dozen of the best technicians who would be available to put that together for you, next week.

• Funding is available through the Arts Council here.
• Emily Walls works nationally and internationally as a self-employed freelance technical stage manager, from her base in East London. She is also a Bectu member. Follow her on Twitter @emilydoesthat