Apprenticeships BEWARE

[Gary Chambers]

FOLLOWING LETTER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE POSTED TO THIS LISTSERV
AND GOT ONTO A DARNED NEWSGROUP INSTEAD.  ANYWAY, I THINK
I HAVE IT RIGHT THIS TIME.  AND TO MAKE SURE, I'LL CARBON
COPY YOU AT REDEEMER.
 
Raymond Louter,
              BEWARE!!  DANGER!!!   MIND THE GAP!!!!
 
          Credibility gap, that is.
 
          I recently served on the board of a theatre venue here in
southern Alberta, which has what one might call an apprenticeship
program.
 
           It was a terrible experience.  Like wearing sandpaper
in one's Y-fronts.
 
           In this program, students are brought in for a summer
stock season to form a "Young Company".  The idea is that these young
performers will learn from working with an Artistic Director and a
professional cast in a commercial company.  The goal of the Artistic
Director and the older actors each year, is to let the young people
learn through mentorship.
 
           But it doesn't work out that way.
 
           The young people end up being nothing more than an excuse,
for a theatre board to run all over the place demanding hand-outs.
 
           They run to Equity demanding a waiver, because you can't
pay college kids union scale now, can you?  And since this is a
charitable thing, we better have waivers for the mentors too.
They run to the province for subsidies - because this provides
summer jobs for students, which is a public service.  They run
to a secret meetings to fire their Artistic Director, because ticket
sales are down, and it couldn't be the board's fault now, could it?
 
             They run....  And they run...  Mostly with their hands
out.
 
           Do the Young Company members learn anything?
 
          Oh, of course.  They perform and they learn.  But they don't
learn as much as they would getting a real job, maybe working for
a percentage of the house in a real commercial theatre, or trying their
hand at the Edmonton fringe.
 
           Does it count for anything?
 
           I very much doubt it.  Try E-mailing someone at the
University of Lethbridge.  Ask them if experience with Young Company
summer stock, at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod, is of any use
to their students.  UofL students often come in here for the summer.
The university may disagree with me.  Don't know who is in
charge there right now.  Try forwarding to drama dept. through
Postmaster at upanet.uleth.ca.
 
          Personally, I think it just turns into an opportunity
for a bunch of socialites, to go begging for tax dollars.
 
           Don't get me wrong. I fully support public funding for
worthy theatrical projects.  But the situation I'm seeing here is
not worthy, and wouldn't last five minutes on its box office sales.
 
          Education is education, and typically takes place in
institutes of learning.
 
          Showbiz is showbiz, and typically takes place in
commercial theatre venues.  Mix the two, and you run the risk
of making both suffer.
 
          The people who suffer the most are your past graduates.
Why would a theatre board want to hire a working actor
at a real wage, when they can get a whole mess of student actors
on job creation grants?  Mentorship goes out the window, as
the number of people to learn from, is reduced season-after-season
to an absolute minimum.
 
          With few trained or experienced types left to carry the
show, the most talented members of the Young Company are brought
back year after year, to make the others look good.  Students who
have enough talent to demand a real price in a real theatre, are
plunged back into kiddy-theatre mode, so the theatre board's dream
of something-for-nothing can remain viable.
 
          Here in Hicksville, they even get these poor young sods to
write their own plays too.  That way the board avoids a playwright's
royalties. (Clever ehh?)  The plays are crap, but do you think the
theatre board gives a damn?
 
          Last summer, for example, there wasn't one member of the
senior cast in the Young Company production. (Lucky for them.)
The senior shows and the Young Company show ran in repertory.
So you tell me who these young people were learning from.  Who were
their mentors?  The theatre janitor perhaps?  Okay the AD and MD were
there with them, I'll grant you that.  But it isn't exactly mentorship
now, is it?
 
          I may have been dreaming, but I think I heard one wise old
owl around the theatre last summer, often using the word "exploitation".
We'll never know for sure.  The board made sure it dumped that wise
old owl at the end of the season.
 
          On closing night, local politicians who raise the tax
money for the program, gather at the theatre.  They shake hands with
board members, and have pictures taken for some weakly news? paper.
Everyone appears very happy with themselves.
 
         What a joke...a very bad, bad joke.
 
          If you decide to go ahead with your apprenticeship program,
Raymond, make sure you keep tight control over it at the university
level.  You call *all* the shots or scuttle the ship before it sets
sail.  Don't turn your students' education over to a board of people
out in the community, many of whom may know little about theatre,
and even less about learning.
 
          If you keep control you might make the idea work better than
it has here.  Loosen your grip on the situation at the theatre, and
you'll create your own personal Greek tragedy.
 
          That's my 2 cents-worth.
 
          (Well, you did ask.)
 
 
Gary Chambers
Fort Macleod
Alberta
 
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Gary Chambers            e-mail: GCHAMBERS at upanet.uleth.ca
Public Access Internet
The University of Lethbridge