Changed For Good

 When covid hit and we were faced with the bizarre reality of being confined to our homes none of us could have guessed quite how long those "strange times" would last. When the theatres went dark in March 2020 it's hard to recall now that there was a belief that they'd be closed for a couple weeks, whereas of course in reality those weeks quickly turned to months. I remember the excitement of taking my children to watch a drive-in Dinosaur show after months of nothing. As my children looked on in amazement and wonderment I distinctly remember sitting in the driving seat shedding a 'happy tear' just to watch a company of actors being able to work again.

Even though this is very much our recent history it already feels like a lifetime ago that I was in my kitchen doing the homeschooling with my eldest prior to rushing online to check in with the college. I remember telling one of my students who was struggling with the lockdown that once it was all over, it would be like returning home from touring - it would be like we'd never been away. Normal life would just trundle on as it always does we'd just be a bit more knowledgeable about ourselves, as anything away from the ordinary is bound to influence our future self.

As I've said before I'm writing a book about The MTA at the moment, and it's fascinating sketching out the pandemic chapter - how quickly we all adapted and changed in a bid to ensure that no time was lost.

Of course, the reality is that covid is still very present, whether it's a random positive test, a reminder to wear your mask in certain settings, or for so many people the debilitating legacy of long covid symptoms lingering on like a bad memory unable to be 'filed' away as finished. Recently I was chatting to someone that was telling me quite how many friends they've lost recently, friends that prior to covid were young and healthy. For many the explosion of sudden deaths fits nicely into the anti-vax rhetoric, it feeds the paranoia that the pandemic left the world with. Of course in reality (and according to multiple peer-reviewed papers now), the reasons for the excess deaths are somewhat complex. A mixture of a global population that was exposed to a deadly virus (it was never a bad cold), leaving more people than we realise with ticking time bombs as the virus goes for one more mutation, plus a global population that stopped routine appointments, meaning that early warning symptoms have been missed.

2 years on our industry is struggling to find its way forward as I wrote about a few months back. Pre-covid the thought of a show being cancelled was just unthinkable. The adage "the show must go on" was our lived reality, post covid though there are no such guarantees. Even at the college level of producing shows it was terrifying how quickly things could change.  All of The MTA's shows since March 2020 were hit in one way or another by a covid outbreak and each time it gave me sleepless nights trying to work out the logistics. . . and that's without the pressure of needing to break even, so hats off to all producers muddling through this strange time.

As the UK lurks from one crisis to another though there's one thing that's struck me recently - how so many people and indeed so many organisations didn't actually "evolve" during the past 2 years, and how right up to the government there appears to have been a naive belief that we would all simply recalibrate back to a pre-pandemic time.  I'm bemused how so many people have missed the evolution and therefore have failed to plan for it.

Take our industry - the constant cancelling of shows has a profound knock-on effect on our audiences. Even as somebody in the industry I hesitate now to book a ticket too far in advance, I'd rather wait and take my chance on the day that I want to go, yet in making this choice I'm also mindful that there are producers needing to see an advance ticket sale. I'm assuming that time and time alone will restore a much needed equilibrium to this, but I also wonder whether from hereonin the show won't go on? 

Whilst our perceived reality pre-2020 was that things were somewhat fixed eg you'd book a holiday and assume that your flight would happen, we now find ourselves in a world full of uncertainty, and I'm curious how that permeates throughout society. 

Speaking recently to some business owners I was struck by their optimism that things would "soon get back to normal" but they seemed to have missed the point entirely that normal in 2022 has a different complexion from normal 2019. It should be noted that not all the changes are bad, take zoom life for example, the fact that the pandemic normalised video conference calls as opposed to traipsing here, there and everywhere for meetings that often took a fifth of the time to travel to places is revolutionary for personal time management. As a parent of young children the normalisation of hybrid working is a game changer, but I can also recognise that this change has the potential to change the city landscape for good.

We lived online for over a year - that is bound to change us all. I've definitely noticed that my concentration span is much shorter these days. I sense myself metaphorically scrolling through information said in person to me with a sense of undue urgency. With online life comes the pros and cons of social media, the artificial divide that's created when we all unwittingly believe a truth just because somebody wrote it down and posted it.

What will it mean for the training industry this fast-scroll life that now exists as a shop window to dance and drama training. Well I think that we've already seen a shift. It's no coincidence that some of the newer colleges that hit the ground running with their brilliant social media campaigns of commercial videos have done considerably better than the "old guard" colleges over recent years. The rapid growth of quite a few of them has been fascinating to watch. As with all these things only time will tell if they're actually any good. It'll be interesting to see their stats over the next few years to find out the quality of that growth. Alternatively of course there's my other theory that elite training is on its way out, and bulk "life training" is on its way in. When training hundreds at a time there will always be enough clickbait to mute the fact that the majority of students don't do that well. 

As for waiting for things to settle down and go back to "normal" though. . .we all have to accept that "normal" has always been a moveable point.

What happened to the Money Tree?

 The Stage have been covering the news of ALRA's sudden closure this week, and they've even attempted to address the issue of vocational training under threat, in a great article by Georgia Snow which I was grateful to have been invited to add a comment to.

However in the article what isn't explicitly named is how the vocational training 'establishment' chased what they believed to be the golden goose of funding, and in doing so sold our industry down the river without a paddle.  Let me explain.

You categorically do not need a degree per se to be a performer. For sure you need a skill set, and techniques to enhance your talent, but you don't 'need' the piece of paper. A casting breakdown will discuss a look, a skill set, and possibly mention that the person needs to have undergone training - it will never mention a qualification. In fact, the introduction of formal HE qualifications is a relatively recent thing eg Birds introduced the first dance degree in 1997 - just 25 years ago. Of course, it wasn't that long before every established college was offering degrees - and why? Well, it's actually quite simple - they thought that a degree would open up a pot of money which would attract more students. A degree guarantees the college between £6K-£10K per person. Now back in the 1990s that must have sounded idyllic.  What a way to 'open up access' and get funding to all. . . including the colleges' bank balance too.

Of course, this is also when things took a nasty turn - because the colleges & universities that validated these degrees (as very few colleges actually have the right to issue their own degrees) also saw the golden goose, and also wanted in on these highly desirable courses. These courses were for many, a pathway to "the dream". So universities also started to advertise "industry-ready" courses. Some of them on realising quite how much demand there was to be a performer starting adding courses all over the place. They'd have their "jewel-in-the-crown" course, but they also had some mop-up courses too (hello foundation courses and a whole range of Post Graduate courses). 

The difficulty though was obvious quite soon - degrees are like the ASDA world of training, pile 'em high and sell them low. Cram 200 students into a lecture theatre, pop one lecturer in front, introduce the idea of private study and Bob's your uncle, it's a course running on a healthy profit, throw in long holidays, an occasional reading week/half term and sit back and watch your profits grow.

So this it where it's gone wrong, as training to be a performer just doesn't work like that. You need small classes as you need to work on the individuals - you can't 'batch teach'. You also need a lot of contact hours, as there's just too much to cover if you want to do it right. Then add in the fact that you really need to be doing a show or two (and they're not cheap to produce) and suddenly those figures don't look so healthy. So what happened? They all started to take more students to increase the income, forgetting that with more students you needed more studios, more teachers, more productions, we started to see things double/triple cast. . . yet nobody said a word. They were applauded for getting bigger! Their size became synonymous with their success, whereas in reality they were slowly selling out.

The universities didn't even play the game from the outset, they made sure that the figures added up, so simply cut the number of contact hours. There are currently courses that only do 16 contact hours/week with cohorts ranging from 30 - 60, they don't do any shows - but they're still claiming to get people industry-ready. Step forward the 'mop-up' Post Grad programmes at the drama colleges ready to take more money to provide what their undergraduate course should have - but couldn't afford to.

The vocational colleges slowly faded out the diploma courses or at least merged them enough with the degrees so that nobody noticed, as their business models became volume over quality. Elite courses that were once the very best of the UK vocational dance/drama scene became ALDI, loads of stock, loss leaders helping to support the creme de la creme (if you have over 100/year and run several courses it's relatively simple to have enough good news stories to cover up the fact that a large majority of your graduates haven't done as well as you'd hope, add in decades of history and alumni that can keep that PR flame burning and those loss leaders will still fight to get into your college).

Now add into the mix the fact that the government haven't increased the fee structure for a number of years, yet all of the costs have increased, and some 25 years later after they all found the "Money Tree" not only has it stopped delivering - it's now asking for money back. To train a performer effectively costs around £14K - £16k/year (depending on what other courses you have running, and what facilities you have free access to) - so suddenly that £6k-£10k golden goose has turned into a headless chicken flapping around looking for more revenue.

Lots of them found additional revenue from fleecing overseas students. There's never been an explanation as to why they felt it was OK to charge overseas students thousands of pounds more than UK residents, other than of course, it was still deemed to be a bargain compared to courses in their own countries. So it was the supply of the market I guess. However, Brexit meant that a huge chunk of that additional revenue dried up, as a surprisingly large percentage of vocational colleges are not permitted to sponsor a student visa. In other words - the "Money Tree" has well and truly been felled.

Here's the really sh*t bit though. When they chased the "goose" (apologies for using two metaphors), they left behind the true vocational training. They didn't fight one iota when the government stopped the PCDL - the only loan available for vocational training in the UK. They didn't fight because they weren't affected. The colleges within the FDS had long forgotten their roots - more than that they'd drawn up the drawbridge from the start to ensure that they were safe. They didn't care about the training industry - they cared about themselves. Those self-appointed elite colleges abandoned vocational training and opted for self-preservation. When people started to question their teaching methods they looked the other way. As investigation after investigation started over (now) proven racism and abuse they have said nothing! They protected their own - when they should have been protecting their students. 

So here we are - the goose is cooked, the Money Tree has been felled, and those of us that stuck to the belief that training was about talent, nurturing, and individuality are all on the outside deemed to be collateral damage. Yet this week that damage happened to one of their own and ALRA folded.

Equity suddenly got involved - but they have done absolutely nothing to help to protect vocational training in the UK.  In fact more than that, they perpetuate the myth of 'you need a degree to become an actor by only accepting colleges that do a recognised diploma/degree onto their graduate programme and let's be clear - they do absolutely nothing to regulate the training industry, they do nothing to hold the colleges to account. 

We will lose other colleges - bring on some more articles in The Stage discussing why, bring on more voices of shock from within the industry - but it all happened when you all watched from the sidelines.

Just this month another brilliant vocational college was sold off to a uni, in the past few years another couple of brilliant colleges were sold off to a conglomerate. You can keep celebrating the buildings - but the people inside those buildings the staff and the students are now just numbers on the database, and numbers on some accountant's spreadsheet, and when those numbers don't add up - more doors will be forced to close.

Drama Colleges Need To Stop Enabling Predators

 I've just finished reading the Diversity School's redacted report, you know the one where they invited people to give their accounts of what was happening in drama colleges today. That'll be . .  today. . . some 2 years after all the initial complaints were made that resulted in several colleges having to do formal investigations. Horrifying to read then that the complaints that had previously been upheld after investigation were being replicated some 2 years later. Where's the evolution? Where's the safeguarding? Where are the changes that they all said that they were going to make?

Now the report isn't clear as to whether these latest complaints were checked? I know all too well that some people for whatever reason, are capable of making false or unfounded allegations.  So I'd be interested to know whether the examples cited in the report had been verified by the colleges involved, or were they just taken on face value? Judging by the fact that certain colleges have already issued a statement saying (again) that they must do better, I also feel fairly safe with my next big statement.

WHY HAVEN'T THE COLLEGES SORTED OUT THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT  THAT'S GOING ON WITHIN THEIR BUILDINGS?

This is such an easy fix the only possible reason for the fix not being undertaken is that they don't see it as an issue.

When I opened The MTA I took advice from a lot of people (obviously), and one of the most important pieces of advice I got (from the Casting Director Debbie O'Brien to be precise), was to ensure that I had a strong boundary line between my staff and my students.  We chatted about various stories we'd heard about (keeping in mind this was back in 2008) but I didn't really need much persuading. I knew that both students and staff would be vulnerable without a clear policy on staff contact.

So one of our rules is that all communications between our faculty and our students have to go through the college. There's no mutual exchange of phone numbers or email addresses. Staff are not permitted to follow students on social media which back in the day prevented people from DMing or PMing each other (although that is now a moot point when some people just leave their DMs open). By removing literally all ambiguity we're attempting to protect both our staff and students.

We also talk about attraction as let's face it - there is nothing more seductive than talent. If your faculty and cohort are good they should all be falling in love with each other (except of course it's not love, it's lust, it's wanting the 'forbidden fruit' and when that 'forbidden fruit' is gloriously talented it looks ever more appetizing). With a faculty like ours, we would expect students to be in awe of some of the staff and would want to have a 'special relationship' with them (we all want to be friends with the popular people eh?). Similarly, staff can end up in awe of a particularly talented/nice student, it's normal and natural, but by having a strict no-contact policy it just can't go anywhere.

Now for sure - I've had both staff members and students that have tried to 'bend' this rule. Students will try to DM someone and say that they forgot the rule or a staff member might 'forget' and think that it's OK to give out a telephone number if they're needing to check on something . . . BUT this only happens once. A college is based on mutual trust - and I'm lucky that one of the parties will invariably raise a red flag to me if the rule has been breached.  We obviously take each case on merit (and to be fair it's only happened a handful of times), and it's usually cleared up very quickly. 

Twice in our history, it wasn't cleared up quickly though - and on both occasions, the guest creatives were told in no uncertain terms that they were no longer welcome at the college.  One had been doing an external project with some of the students, but their innuendo-laden chit chat had left the students feeling uncomfortable, and the other had been taking one of the students out for a coffee after rehearsals (supposedly to support them. . . but of course on every level that's a strict no-no).  Interestingly one of the perpetrators kind of admitted that they had crossed a line and just took the "do not darken our doors" approach quite calmly, the other though very quickly turned on the students and indeed the college, and denied that the countless meetings had ever taken place. Both reactions are interesting, but both people I believe abused their 'power'. Both might have had innocent intentions - but our rules are clear, and if you're unable to uphold them, it's our job to ensure that you're not around our students. Even more interestingly I've seen both people publicly berate others who are called out for the exact same behaviour that they themselves had done. How manipulative and perverted is it that they know that the behaviour is unacceptable but still choose to do it themselves?

Our staff and students are only permitted to socialise after shows (and then only in the theatre bar where everybody is around), and at our Gradunion ceremony. No ambiguity. Simple but effective hard-fast rules. 

If you have a culture where your students and staff are drinking alcohol together - then you will inevitably have a problem. The line has been blurred. Beer goggles, awe-inspiring talent, the desire for the "forbidden fruit" - it's an incident of abuse of power waiting to happen.

I've heard the line about 'but they're all adults' but let's face it,  it's just a smokescreen for people who know that they're abusing their position. By definition of the word faculty and the word student - one person in the relationship or burgeoning friendship will hold the 'power' and that is not healthy.  

If whatever is going on between people is 'true love', then it can wait until after the student has graduated, or the staff member has resigned their post.  Again . . . no ambiguity. It's uncomfortable for all the other students to observe a 'special relationship' developing between a staff member and one of their peers. It can lead to preferential treatment (or in some cases the opposite, a public bullying to throw people off the scent). However every student pays the same, so every student should be treated the same.

So reading again about sexualised abuse of power at drama schools is devastating, because it means that the people in authority at those colleges are enablers. A strong sentence. . . absolutely. However, they could protect both their staff and their students if they simply implemented, upheld, and policed a no-contact policy. It really is that simple. However, I'd go further . . . if you have staff that have a difficulty with that change in policy. . . ask yourself why, as that's your real problem right there.

Staff and students should expect to be protected from predators in a college environment. Let's stop thinking that performers are just edgy shall we and name it for what it is - predators prowling our drama colleges looking for their next prey.

Get them out!