They Saved The MTA

19th July 7pm announced publicly that we were closing The MTA in September 2021. This was not a ploy, it was a heartbreaking reality.

29th July midday announced that somehow we had been 'saved'. In just 10 days the darkest day of The MTA turned into the brightest day. We're under no illusions that we're saved for good - but we are safe long enough to allow the class of 2022 to graduate, and for the past 3 to 4 months that's all we were trying to do. We have plans and supporters in place to work with us to secure a better future for the college, but we'll be taking it one step at a time. Of course the intention is to keep going - but we set out to do one thing first.

In the last 10 days, though we've seen instalives packed with MT royalty supporting the #savetheMTA campaign, we've seen a Go Fund Me campaign raised at the last look over £16k, we've had offers of support both financial and in kind. I've spoken more to Chairman Jon Harris than I have to my wife, as we worked our way through the various obstacles and aids that were thrown at us.

I've been reminded time and time again that my poor self-esteem really can't handle compliments. I've been taken on countless trips down Memory Lane, with past students and staff, lots of those trips were just sheer laughter, a couple of sheer horror but quite a few of them were devastatingly humbling.

I've been reminded (as if I needed it actually) that I have an amazing group of friends that really 'get me', who know when to back off, and exactly when to parachute in with words of wisdom. My family are my heroes.

I spent half the week emailing people telling them that things had been canceled, and terminating contracts, whilst the latter part of the week emailing them back to say that things were all back on.

To say that I'm reeling is an understatement. However, most of all I feel a huge sense of relief. Carrying the stress of the past year has taken a tremendous toll on me. That old work/life balance definitely needs adjusting, but suddenly the college once again has a sense of possibility and hope about it, as opposed to a sense of inevitability. 

Over the past year, the pandemic had almost forced the wider MTA community apart. Not so fulfilling to pop into a zoom room as it is to pop into a Green Room. Whilst every so often we'd all come together for some online event or another it did feel like it had drifted. However, once the closure announcement was made those ambassadors were just phenomenal. I had spent the best part of the year sad for my 1st years because they had no sense of the greater MTA community when suddenly they all parachuted down to help out of nowhere.

I've kept saying this but The MTA is not the only independent drama college focussing on vocational training. There's a few of us about, and we're all being sold out by the industry's gatekeepers and that really needs to change. We're going to keep doing our thing because we know that it works, and from the outpouring of support we've had over the last 10 days it seems obvious that quite a few people agree with us. We've consciously not issued press releases - predominantly because I loathe how in recent years The Stage has noticeably changed direction from the 'we'll support everyone' stance that we used to know and love into the 'we'll only talk about the Federation of Drama Schools' as if there's nothing else out there. Well let's just call it shall we - as a lot of those colleges are currently undertaking internal investigations on really serious allegations, but The Stage still reveres the ground that they walk on.  The Stage (and Equity) should be campaigning to regulate the UK training industry. Instead, everybody stays quiet.

They are our industry newspaper and have done next to nothing to highlight and campaign about the lack of provision in vocational training, just like Equity have done nothing. Too many 'old boys' looking after the 'old boys' for my liking. Plus now that they've added these ridiculous clickbait headlines to social media posts knowing full well that the articles are behind a paywall . . . well I'm done with pretending that that's OK.  We've called it out a few times over the closure, and it's been interesting to see others call it out too. Well, we're done with being quiet with this stuff moving forward. Things really do need to change.

That said, and rant over, for now, I'm going to take some time to finish off this academic year, regroup, reset then move forward. The path ahead though doesn't feel as lonely as usual. 

Expect the Unexpected

 Every year when a new intake joins the college we ask our graduates and 2nd years if they have any advice for the newbies. Without fail one person will always say that to 'survive' #theMTAway they need to expect the unexpected. Now to qualify that really quickly - what they're referring to is our penchant of springing surprise auditions on them all the time. We do it to train our students not to be afraid of auditions, to almost see them as a game. Successful or not, just to have taken part means that it was an audition 'banked'. None of us ever know when the payout of that deposit will be, but if you did your prep, it will eventually pay you back.

Well, this week's event has made me really reflect on that phrase. Monday was truly horrific. Since the Board voted not to run next year late on Friday evening, it's fair to say that my weekend was . . . difficult. I still had a show left to finish writing, and it's REALLY hard trying to write a comedy when you're living in your own private hell. Just to make 2021 really perfect, just a matter of days earlier I had also been home to Wales to attend the funeral of a really close relative. It had been one of those tragic diagnosed one week died 2 weeks later sort of scenarios. With my wife looking after the children I ended up locking myself away in the office for the weekend writing, grieving and stunned actually. 

In a bid to support our students when we broke the news I was flagged by Jon Harris, the Chair of our Board, Sam Hull, a Trustee but also one of our original cohort (so she'd been there on the day that the college opened), plus faculty members Josh Mathieson (Head of Voice/VP), Giles Taylor (Deputy Head of Acting) and Tilly Vosburgh (Head of Acting who had literally ubered across to us after finishing a morning shoot).

The next hour was a blur really, emails scheduled to go out to incoming students, staff, supporters, 2 year groups to tell, a social media live in a private group to tell our graduates. Here's what I do remember though - the first years whilst devastated were instantly galvanised into a group of action, even though the situation was desperate we still managed to find things to laugh about (a very important MTA trait). The irony that they had literally just finished a MT class looking at rep only to discover that the song of the day had been "Tell Me It's Not True"? I mean WTAF? 

The 2nd years were equally stunned, but recognised instantly that they were in many way unaffected by the decision (other than the lack of free dance classes moving forward), so immediately after we finished explaining the situation to them - their response? They asked to go across to the other studio to support their friends in the first year. It was as beautiful as it was devastatingly painful to watch.

Then this is when it all changed - as I had made the decision to personally tell our graduates (college for life and all that, so we have regular contact with them, and this was far too important to just send an email). I nipped into their private FB group to go live and tell them (I should add that the only other time that I've ever done that actually was when it was announced that the UK was closing down for a global pandemic, and we went live in all our groups to reassure them and tell them that we were around to support them).  As with our students, we explained our financial position in detail as we're always transparent with our students, yet even when I made it clear that we were looking to find stupid money very quickly, they were instantly galvanised to try and help.

By that evening a group calling themselves "The MTA Community" has started a Go Fund Me, we had already been contacted about the potential of some larger donations, and by the time the news went public at 7pm it felt like this kamikaze juggernaut that I'd been trying to steer for the last few months had already been taken away from me, with a whole group of people suddenly attempting to steer it instead. 

It was a conscious decision to put out our statement on our own terms via our social media channels, as for quite some time now it's been evident that our industry press has a clear bias supporting the Federation of Drama Schools, and their clickbait social media headlines invariably belie the story of the articles held behind a paywall. We had nothing to hide and A LOT to say, and we wanted the full story out there.  Whilst we felt that it was too late for us, we know that we're not the only college struggling with policy decisions designed to push out true vocational training.

Never in a million years did I think that our post would have the reaction that it did. We felt that we were such an insignificant cog in this beast of an industry that we would be gifted the dignity to slide away quietly. I was aware that we had facilitated change in the training industry, especially around all the mental health stuff, but even that felt like it had been sidelined recently having heard the absolute horror stories that were spilling out in the media. Organisations that had signed up to the #time4change mental health charter had clearly done nothing more than offered lip service to it given what else was alleged to have been going on in these colleges.

How wrong we were.  As people that work with me know I'm fastidious about responding to messages instantly, invoices are literally paid on receipt as I just like to keep on top of my work. However, there was no way that I could keep on top of this. Once I've finished this I've got some serious catching up to do.

We still don't know what's going to happen, we still haven't secured all the funding that we need, however, we have now said that IF we did reach our £250K goal which would enable us to end the course properly for our current first years, we would also run one more first-year group, only this time with no guarantee of a 2nd year, and as the £250K is essentially paying for "ghost seats" for the students that we failed to attract, we committed to filling those seats with disadvantaged students who would never usually be able to afford a vocational college. We'll hold auditions for a diverse group of students who would like to train #theMTAway for a year. They'd get to do 3 shows with us if nothing else. 

My only unfulfilled dream around The MTA was to find a way to fund 50% of our places with 50% funding already in place. Maybe, just maybe our final year would finally allow me to reach that goal. A bittersweet irony, but a hugely gratifying one at that.

The story goes on. . . . 

Here's a link to the Go Fund Me page: https://uk.gofundme.com/f/save-the-mta

Let's start at the very beginning...

Once again there is a flurry of activity around the fact that the 'working man' is getting lost in our industry. Times are changing and not for the better (they cry). Bring back rep (they cry). However isn't the current noise coming from the people that are the elite or at least have become the elite? The ones that have made it in our industry? Isn't it something like 2% of performers actually make a living out of being a performer? I mean great that they're shouting, and using their position to make some noise, but is that all it is? Noise?

What happened to the drama college that was going to be funded by actors, where all the fees were going to be covered by the professionals? That was 'launched' with panache and then fell by the wayside (unless I've missed something?)

Shall we start at the beginning of the cycle as opposed to jumping to the middle. The 'working man' can't even afford to go to the theatre to get inspired to even think of it as a career at the moment. So is this just the elite shouting to the elite anyway?

Since 2010 The MTA has run a scheme whereby any local children can come and watch our panto on a pay what you can arrangement.  When we were at the Drill Hall, you won't be surprised to hear that the two schools that took us up on the deal, could pay a fair rate.  In subsequent years we've been in less affluent areas so the pay what you can rate has gotten considerably lower.  Then in 2014 we did our first panto in what was then going to be our 'new home' down at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham.

Thanks to the combined efforts of local schools, us and indeed BGAC, in the first year alone we played to over 1000 children.  A lot of whom had NEVER been to the theatre before.  It was the most humbling thing ever to watch their amazement at the 'magic' of a simple mirror ball.  They didn't mind that we didn't have a fancy all singing, all dancing set...they loved just being entertained by the simple magic of theatre.

Last year we extended the scheme and played to over 1500 children.  Again their faces were a joy to watch (in fact I had to work hard to remember that I was supposed to be watching the show, not watching the joy on the children's faces).  After each show we arranged a meet and greet with the cast, and the children were ecstatic. Even the older 'cool kids' visually got excited by 'meeting the stars'.  Let's keep it real here - the stars were just our 2nd years. . . having the time of their lives being idolised by all the kids, and learning themselves the importance that panto has not just for our industry, but also in our society.

The trouble is though, that shows and hiring theatres cost money.  In a 2 week run we don't stand a chance of recouping our losses. However part of our students' fees go towards funding 4 shows a year for them, so in a way each show is subsidised.  In a bid to extend the scheme even further this year we've started to fund raise. Obviously we're looking for commercial sponsors(so if you're a Tottenham based firm and fancy helping out this Christmas, please do get in touch). So we're trying a 'buy a child a seat' crowdfunding scheme https://www.gofundme.com/24vga64

I'm aware that something similar was tried recently for Dougal Irvine's The Busker's Opera down at The Park theatre, although I missed if they managed to raise the money or not. I hope so as it was a great idea.

I'd love to take the credit for the fund raiser, however it was our Health and Welfare Consultant, Angie Peake who thought of it and decided to give it a go.  She did the usual sum of 'if all of my friends on FB sponsored just one seat we'd raise X amount of money' Of course in reality this just doesn't happen for a multitude of reasons I suspect. That said we've already funded 30 places, which is nearly a class coming to see the panto this year, that maybe wouldn't normally afford to even contemplate a theatre visit.

We're aiming to get 2000 children in this year...so the race is on to find the extra money that this will cost us.  We'll do it though...because it's important.

Then what if one child loves what they see and decides to 'give it a go' themselves? What then? Well I hate to say it, but we're back in the realms of the haves and haves not. How do they afford to go to classes? What schemes are there in the local community to fund children slowly building aspirations?

The thing is though, we're not just talking about theatre, which let's face it has always been elite? Why are we pretending that this is new? When I was training it was elite...but the 'working classes' will always find a way to help their children out of their rut. That's just what we do!   If your child wants to study ANYTHING in HE the working classes are priced out of the market. So who's going to build the social housing of the future? Will it be some upper class architect with a social conscience, trying to make amends for their own family's wealth? Shouldn't it be designed by the people who understand the needs of the community, the people that were brought up in that environment?

Of course architects don't generally 'have a public voice', so we don't keep reading in the papers what they're saying about the future of their industry.  So we're back to so called celebrities, using their platform to voice their concerns and rattle a few cages.

My TL is engulfed with people Sharing or RT'ing' these worthy statements - but what do YOU do to change things? It's easy to click and 'share'. It's easy to write a rousing comment to go with the 'share', but what do you actually DO to make a difference?

The reality is, probably nothing. You want the answer to come from the government. It's THEIR fault that we're in this situation, so THEY should do something about it.

The trouble is....they won't.

Whichever government it is...they won't.

If socialism is ever to work as anything more than just some rabble rousing rhetoric, then each of us will have to make different choices. Don't have your Starbucks tomorrow and donate that money to a more worthy cause. Don't have that pint after the show, and donate the money to a worthy cause.  The thing is, we could ALL do our bit but our apathy or introverted thinking means that we won't(and I'm not exempt from this argument. I could make different choices too).

So next time you click 'Share' or RT an amazing speech, hold up a mirror and ask yourself if you could do something different...just once? If you're not sure what to do...then do remember that this appeal will be running for months: https://www.gofundme.com/24vga64