Last year I was really honoured to be asked to give one of the keynote speeches at Equity's first ArtsMind Symposium. I had been invited to discuss the journey that I had been on whilst initiating the #time4change Mental Health Charter, and I also got to discuss the highs and lows of running a college that is taking a whole school approach to mental health.
BAPAM had recently published their consultation paper about the mental health difficulties our industry faces and had also made some recommendations about a more productive and helpful way to move forward. Interestingly they were recommending a whole school approach as the most effective, and also discussed the possibility of moving towards a clinician lead system in drama colleges. The MTA has only ever operated with such a system, so it was interesting to discuss the realities of this (The MTA now being in its 11th year). The synopsis was this really - early intervention is key, and by getting our community to understand that mental health is no different to physical health, we could help to prevent or decrease a personal mental health crisis. See the physio when you first suspect that there's an injury, and you're more likely to make a quicker (and often stronger) recovery, see a mental health specialist when you first recognise some symptoms and the same rules apply. The difficulty being of course that most of us recognise early signs of physical illnesses, but very few of us recognise early signs of mental illnesses. Indeed that was the entire point of the charter - to get those symptoms (and maladaptive coping mechanisms) more widely known.
Within my speech though I also spoke at length at how I felt that the mental health conversation had gotten sideswiped by the conversation around wellbeing. I noted that having campaigned for 6 years to have a more honest conversation about mental health, somehow in the past year or so the conversation had been sanitised. As great as it was to see more and more people recognising their own struggles and indeed naming them as part of their process, or as a way to get 'the message' out there, the conversation had taken an interesting diversion, and one which I felt wasn't particularly helpful.
Mental Health had somehow turned into Wellbeing and in doing so we had lost Mental Illnesses within the discussion. A social media statement about a bad anxiety day usually turned into a list of people saying that it would be OK, that they were around if that person needed somebody to talk to, or people just sharing their own mental health struggles in a bid I suspect to show the original poster that they were not alone. What I noted though was that it was unusual to see a possible solution in the replies. It was rare to see a response asking whether the person had checked in with their doctor. For a surprisingly large number of mental illnesses, you can expect to live in a symptom-free world. Yet the answers to the posts didn't have that expectation or offer up that hope.
Wellbeing was everywhere. For every great mental health article there would be one stating that the 'cure' was much simpler than people realised. One of my students actually wrote a great ranting post about how if it really was as simple as eating a healthier diet (for example), don't you think that they would have tried it? The reality was much harsher, and by 'helpfully' sharing the Daily Mail's latest take on 'How to cure depression' they were actually unwittingly sharing a belief that mental illnesses were avoidable. That it was a weakness of the person, as opposed to a genetic, chemical or environmental cause.
Then somebody else pointed out to me the dangers of these articles. For somebody who is seriously unwell and who has potentially lost their grasp on reality, reading all these 'cures' was actually feeding the illness not satisfying a cure. As they limped from article to article believing that each one would 'make them feel OK', they were also getting more and more unwell.
I noted in my speech that we had completely whitewashed the ugly side of mental illness. How self-destructive it can be, how an illness can almost manipulate a person's personality to make decisions that they would never make when well. Some illness really do take over the person's personality - we've seen it time and time again at college, as people slowly alienate themselves from their friends because reality is moving further and further away from them. I could go on - but you get the picture.
Mental illnesses don't manifest themselves in the way that many people think. The critically depressed person isn't necessarily the one that's telling you that they're low - indeed they're more likely to be the one that's telling you that they're fine. Anxiety isn't just about feeling worried - the physical symptoms are often more debilitating. Basically what I'm saying is what we see on people's social media might be a manifestation of something rather serious going on for somebody, so maybe it's better to say nothing rather than piling on to tell whoever that they're damaging everybody else's mental health. Maybe right now they are so fragile we should just leave them be (as hard as that is).
Our words are powerful and whilst a statement can often feel like an empowering thing to do I wonder if it is? Report accounts to the relevant complaint handles then just block them. Don't go back to see what they've done 'this time' . . . walk away from it. Do we have to announce that we've blocked or reported someone? Do we have to encourage others to do the same? Could we all just use our own autonomy and trust that others will do the same? If it's really bad and you feel really strongly about it, could you sound your battle cry offline? Literally, the world is vulnerable right now, so it doesn't take much encouragement for us all to rush to 'protect' people or in our case an industry that is struggling. However, there's a difference between the lone warrior and the organised hate groups.
We are all throwing the 'Be Kind' hashtag around, whilst very often have forgotten to do the same ourselves. Many people will discuss the impact of a feud on their own mental health, but what 'if' the person that your fighting against is ill and you just don't recognise those symptoms? For sure even an ill person can take responsibility for their actions and their words (unless they're psychotic), but can you be sure that your response won't tip them over the edge? Is the defence of 'well they're not being kind' a valid excuse for us to stoop to their level?
Words matter right now probably more than ever. . . but remaining curious to the possibility of the ugly side of mental illness might make a big difference too.
Stay safe
Friday, 17 April 2020
Wednesday, 8 April 2020
So. . . I now run an online college?
The MTA's strange academic year worked out well in terms of the CoronaVirus lockdown. We were incredibly lucky that we managed to complete our 5 performance run of our flagship revue show - Something Old, Something New. Whilst it's important to note that it's not our Showcase, it is an important production to start introducing our graduating year to the industry.
However, our timeframe did mean that we were able to chat with our students before we ended the term and reassure them in person about how we were going to run an online college if the UK did follow the rest of the world and get put into lockdown. We were even able to chat through roughly how it might work. We were lucky - 2 days later that's exactly what started to happen. Even though we were then on holiday I did a quick live stream to our private group to remind them not to panic as we'd already spoken about what would happen.
I don't know about anybody else, but I must confess I never had a backup pandemic plan up my sleeve ready for a global shutdown, and with no tech department to help me, I think that I undertook the biggest learning curve of my life (and I thought that I'd already made that journey when I opened the 'real' college 11 years ago). However, I had just 2 weeks to create The MTA Online. One of the things that I felt would work in my favour was that when I created 'the other MTA' back in 2008 I had consciously created a course that I could run and monitor remotely. The idea being that after the college was up and running I could go back on tour and continue to run the college in between my 'real work' as an MD*. The college has a policy that all staff have to be currently working, so the online infrastructure was actually already in place and part of our everyday life. Our classnote system is online, the timetable is online, there's not a day that goes by where we're not communicating with them via private groups, etc. So it was just the actual teaching to sort out <gulp>
So then it was hitting each problem in order of urgency. The priority was to ensure that all the agent 1:1 auditions could at least be offered in an online format. So I first made friends with Zoom. What a fast-moving world we all live in isn't it? Suddenly we're all speaking about meeting up in zoom, yet most of us had no bloody clue about it before the pandemic.
The majority of agencies immediately agreed to move their auditions with our graduates online, so that was my first relief moment. We wanted to reassure the students as quickly as possible (even though they don't graduate until September I was aware that they were seeing all the #UK2020grad posts going up which were bound to make them anxious even though they were not in the same position as those graduates that had lost their showcase), so back I went online to live stream some more reassurance. I felt that it was important to be 'present' as opposed to just posting notices.
The next job - was to move our 100% vocational course online. Finally, after a few years of really fighting against the 'establishment' because I've refused to turn our course into a formal qualification (because our industry is vocational and therefore it's the training that's important not the piece of paper in terms of getting you into the audition room), The MTA came into its own. We could literally rewrite the course to ensure that this would be a valuable term for our students. I was so mindful that they were still paying their fees so I had an obligation to give them value for money albeit in a different way. I was also mindful that our industry had literally had the rug pulled from under it. The MTA has a faculty of very loyal freelancers - the very people that had completely lost their income. So I wanted to try and help to support as many of them as possible too. After all, a college is only as strong as its students AND faculty. I felt that there was a moral obligation to try to help (if possible)
So emails were sent out explaining that we were going online, and if they wanted to continue to teach for us, they needed to work out how to run online classes. My only stipulation was that the classes had to be interactive. I felt that videoed classes wouldn't allow us to watch and correct the students in real-time, and therefore not achieve the aims of the course which would, in turn, impact the progression that we needed the students to make this term (pandemic or not)
Suddenly I had an entire faculty on the learning curve with me. With that cog working away in the background next up we had to move our auditions online for our 2020 intake. Once again I didn't see the value of them sending in a self-tape as we wanted to work with them, we wanted to interact with them. The MTA's whole day audition is all about getting to know the people, not just the talent. Cue several senior faculty zoom meetings as we worked out how best to run the online audition. Suddenly lockdown was our friend, as when we needed volunteers to help us work it out we were never short of students and graduates willing to pop into the 'virtual' room to help us try out our latest idea. A plan was formed, the auditionees were notified and before we knew it my senior faculty and myself were all in a virtual room with several complete strangers.
This turned out to be our lightbulb day though. Whilst for sure there were limitations online, it also offered up so many great things. In many ways, we actually preferred the online audition, and it's certainly going to prompt a serious discussion once the dust has settled about how we audition people moving forward. We already offer a free online first-round audition in a bid to save people money, maybe there's a way to move the main audition online permanently - saving them a fortune in travel & often accommodation. Maybe we could offer both options? I don't know. . . but definitely watch this space.
Having experienced a few hours in the 'virtual' college, we all started to realise that there were endless possibilities that we could explore. The MTA does a 50/50 stage/screen split anyway, so actually working with a lens between us offers us lots of opportunities to explore. We live in a world where more and more auditions are via self-tapes. What an amazing chance we had to really focus on all of this stuff.
The dance staff met up and all were confident that they could offer worthwhile online dance classes, voice, and acting were easy to transfer online. Strangely enough, singing was the hardest area, as whilst 1:1 singing lessons could happen with ease, group singing is just not feasible in our 4G world. After much asking around it seemed like my only option was for the students to mute their mics and sing to a screen? Our students are not singing for pleasure, they are singing to enhance their skill set, we're looking at the nuances of group singing. They might have been blending beautifully, their harmony line might have been divine - but the tutor would never know. However, we did know that the 1:1 stuff worked really well.
Still on holiday we had another live-streamed chat with our students (& graduates. . . as we have a college for life policy and therefore I needed to check in with them too), and as part of our 'checking in with your mental health' chat, we were chatting about what people could do during this lockdown, and lots of people started chatting about learning to play 'that instrument' that has sat in their room for years but they've never had the time to learn it. Cue the next idea. We are not an actor-muso course, nor do we aspire to be, however we all know that instrumental skills are incredibly useful to a performer. So a quick check who could gain access to a guitar to check that my plan would be worth it - and suddenly 75% of the college are now having weekly guitar lessons. Learning in streamed groups expect to see something spectacular at next year's revue (she jokes, but not really). Then a group came to me as they had access to a keyboard, could we teach them how to play the piano? We're currently putting this in place.
In our senior faculty meeting, we were chatting about the fact that literally, everybody was available right now - so we should try to get some good Q&As and masterclasses going, as they'd work well with this format. It would also mean that our students always had something to look forward to. Days and weeks of lockdown monotony were going to hit hard. We needed to offer them something to be excited about. What an amazing opportunity this online term was going to offer us. Of course, being online meant that we weren't limited to UK guests - so off I hopped over to Broadway (virtually of course), and with the help of our friends, we suddenly found ourselves with one hell of a term. Q&As with film directors, Dexter Fletcher & Joe Wright, writer David Eldridge returns to the college, masterclasses with Cassidy Janson & Annalene Beechey, Q&As with Broadway stars Claybourne Elder, Laura Osnes, Julia Murney, Kara Lindsay, with West End stars Adam Garcia and Louise Dearman, plus meetings with producers, casting directors, resident directors AND a private screening of the Desperately Seeking The Exit thanks to the ever marvelous Peter Michael Marino. . . and. . . well, who knows?
We're on day 3 and already we've discovered new things, but again because we're completely independent we can implement new ideas within hours. From an 'oh no' term, we're seeing our Pandemic Term as an 'OMG we could do this too... .' sort of term.
My virtual office stays open for a while after regular classes, so students and graduates can pop in if they're struggling or just to say hello. Our mental health clinician is still available to the entire college 24/7/365 and is of course now just offering online or phone sessions, but it does mean that our lot (& staff) have instant access to a mental health professional if the lockdown is particularly hard for them.
So that's it, within the space of just 2 weeks . . . I now run an online college. I sit in mission control for hours on end looking at screens, opening up zoom rooms, and planning. What else can we do? Maybe I'll revisit this blog at the end of the Pandemic Term to see if it was really as exciting as we currently think that it's got the potential to be.
Stay safe all
*this never happened. Turns out running a college is really busy
However, our timeframe did mean that we were able to chat with our students before we ended the term and reassure them in person about how we were going to run an online college if the UK did follow the rest of the world and get put into lockdown. We were even able to chat through roughly how it might work. We were lucky - 2 days later that's exactly what started to happen. Even though we were then on holiday I did a quick live stream to our private group to remind them not to panic as we'd already spoken about what would happen.
I don't know about anybody else, but I must confess I never had a backup pandemic plan up my sleeve ready for a global shutdown, and with no tech department to help me, I think that I undertook the biggest learning curve of my life (and I thought that I'd already made that journey when I opened the 'real' college 11 years ago). However, I had just 2 weeks to create The MTA Online. One of the things that I felt would work in my favour was that when I created 'the other MTA' back in 2008 I had consciously created a course that I could run and monitor remotely. The idea being that after the college was up and running I could go back on tour and continue to run the college in between my 'real work' as an MD*. The college has a policy that all staff have to be currently working, so the online infrastructure was actually already in place and part of our everyday life. Our classnote system is online, the timetable is online, there's not a day that goes by where we're not communicating with them via private groups, etc. So it was just the actual teaching to sort out <gulp>
So then it was hitting each problem in order of urgency. The priority was to ensure that all the agent 1:1 auditions could at least be offered in an online format. So I first made friends with Zoom. What a fast-moving world we all live in isn't it? Suddenly we're all speaking about meeting up in zoom, yet most of us had no bloody clue about it before the pandemic.
The majority of agencies immediately agreed to move their auditions with our graduates online, so that was my first relief moment. We wanted to reassure the students as quickly as possible (even though they don't graduate until September I was aware that they were seeing all the #UK2020grad posts going up which were bound to make them anxious even though they were not in the same position as those graduates that had lost their showcase), so back I went online to live stream some more reassurance. I felt that it was important to be 'present' as opposed to just posting notices.
The next job - was to move our 100% vocational course online. Finally, after a few years of really fighting against the 'establishment' because I've refused to turn our course into a formal qualification (because our industry is vocational and therefore it's the training that's important not the piece of paper in terms of getting you into the audition room), The MTA came into its own. We could literally rewrite the course to ensure that this would be a valuable term for our students. I was so mindful that they were still paying their fees so I had an obligation to give them value for money albeit in a different way. I was also mindful that our industry had literally had the rug pulled from under it. The MTA has a faculty of very loyal freelancers - the very people that had completely lost their income. So I wanted to try and help to support as many of them as possible too. After all, a college is only as strong as its students AND faculty. I felt that there was a moral obligation to try to help (if possible)
So emails were sent out explaining that we were going online, and if they wanted to continue to teach for us, they needed to work out how to run online classes. My only stipulation was that the classes had to be interactive. I felt that videoed classes wouldn't allow us to watch and correct the students in real-time, and therefore not achieve the aims of the course which would, in turn, impact the progression that we needed the students to make this term (pandemic or not)
Suddenly I had an entire faculty on the learning curve with me. With that cog working away in the background next up we had to move our auditions online for our 2020 intake. Once again I didn't see the value of them sending in a self-tape as we wanted to work with them, we wanted to interact with them. The MTA's whole day audition is all about getting to know the people, not just the talent. Cue several senior faculty zoom meetings as we worked out how best to run the online audition. Suddenly lockdown was our friend, as when we needed volunteers to help us work it out we were never short of students and graduates willing to pop into the 'virtual' room to help us try out our latest idea. A plan was formed, the auditionees were notified and before we knew it my senior faculty and myself were all in a virtual room with several complete strangers.
This turned out to be our lightbulb day though. Whilst for sure there were limitations online, it also offered up so many great things. In many ways, we actually preferred the online audition, and it's certainly going to prompt a serious discussion once the dust has settled about how we audition people moving forward. We already offer a free online first-round audition in a bid to save people money, maybe there's a way to move the main audition online permanently - saving them a fortune in travel & often accommodation. Maybe we could offer both options? I don't know. . . but definitely watch this space.
Having experienced a few hours in the 'virtual' college, we all started to realise that there were endless possibilities that we could explore. The MTA does a 50/50 stage/screen split anyway, so actually working with a lens between us offers us lots of opportunities to explore. We live in a world where more and more auditions are via self-tapes. What an amazing chance we had to really focus on all of this stuff.
The dance staff met up and all were confident that they could offer worthwhile online dance classes, voice, and acting were easy to transfer online. Strangely enough, singing was the hardest area, as whilst 1:1 singing lessons could happen with ease, group singing is just not feasible in our 4G world. After much asking around it seemed like my only option was for the students to mute their mics and sing to a screen? Our students are not singing for pleasure, they are singing to enhance their skill set, we're looking at the nuances of group singing. They might have been blending beautifully, their harmony line might have been divine - but the tutor would never know. However, we did know that the 1:1 stuff worked really well.
Still on holiday we had another live-streamed chat with our students (& graduates. . . as we have a college for life policy and therefore I needed to check in with them too), and as part of our 'checking in with your mental health' chat, we were chatting about what people could do during this lockdown, and lots of people started chatting about learning to play 'that instrument' that has sat in their room for years but they've never had the time to learn it. Cue the next idea. We are not an actor-muso course, nor do we aspire to be, however we all know that instrumental skills are incredibly useful to a performer. So a quick check who could gain access to a guitar to check that my plan would be worth it - and suddenly 75% of the college are now having weekly guitar lessons. Learning in streamed groups expect to see something spectacular at next year's revue (she jokes, but not really). Then a group came to me as they had access to a keyboard, could we teach them how to play the piano? We're currently putting this in place.
In our senior faculty meeting, we were chatting about the fact that literally, everybody was available right now - so we should try to get some good Q&As and masterclasses going, as they'd work well with this format. It would also mean that our students always had something to look forward to. Days and weeks of lockdown monotony were going to hit hard. We needed to offer them something to be excited about. What an amazing opportunity this online term was going to offer us. Of course, being online meant that we weren't limited to UK guests - so off I hopped over to Broadway (virtually of course), and with the help of our friends, we suddenly found ourselves with one hell of a term. Q&As with film directors, Dexter Fletcher & Joe Wright, writer David Eldridge returns to the college, masterclasses with Cassidy Janson & Annalene Beechey, Q&As with Broadway stars Claybourne Elder, Laura Osnes, Julia Murney, Kara Lindsay, with West End stars Adam Garcia and Louise Dearman, plus meetings with producers, casting directors, resident directors AND a private screening of the Desperately Seeking The Exit thanks to the ever marvelous Peter Michael Marino. . . and. . . well, who knows?
We're on day 3 and already we've discovered new things, but again because we're completely independent we can implement new ideas within hours. From an 'oh no' term, we're seeing our Pandemic Term as an 'OMG we could do this too... .' sort of term.
My virtual office stays open for a while after regular classes, so students and graduates can pop in if they're struggling or just to say hello. Our mental health clinician is still available to the entire college 24/7/365 and is of course now just offering online or phone sessions, but it does mean that our lot (& staff) have instant access to a mental health professional if the lockdown is particularly hard for them.
So that's it, within the space of just 2 weeks . . . I now run an online college. I sit in mission control for hours on end looking at screens, opening up zoom rooms, and planning. What else can we do? Maybe I'll revisit this blog at the end of the Pandemic Term to see if it was really as exciting as we currently think that it's got the potential to be.
Stay safe all
*this never happened. Turns out running a college is really busy
Tuesday, 17 March 2020
The Mental Health Epidemic within the Pandemic
Last night the unthinkable happened. Theatre in the UK closed its doors. Frustratingly for theatres and producers this came about via a carefully worded recommendation to our audiences as opposed to a directive to them, thereby potentially preventing companies from having a valid insurance claim. Making companies and individuals even more vulnerable than they were already feeling.
I can't be the only one that never thought that we'd see such a day in the UK (or indeed around the world), but here it is and an entire industry is left reeling as each individual tries to work out 'what now?'
Of course we all knew that it was coming. Broadway closed last week so it's been a waiting game since then. The big difference of course is that our American colleagues earn substantially more money than the jobbing actor/techie in the UK. There is more chance that they've saved up for the inevitable rainy day scenario. That said some people just don't have it in them to save regardless of income, so this isn't guaranteed, however the potential to save is there. I don't think that the majority of the UK industry (on and off stage) have this dilemma. We all live in a somewhat hand to mouth environment, and have long since consoled ourselves with the fact that our souls are full even if our bank accounts aren't. The majority of our industry need the next wage packet, which is why you see people closing in a successful show on the Saturday, going to work in their 'crap job' or 'muggle job' by the Monday. In a way it's kept us all grounded for years, it's hard to get 'up yourself' when you know that you'll be back in civvy street within a few weeks.
So suddenly an entire industry faces a very uncertain future. We all go online to tell the world how frightened we are, and we feel the need to let everybody know what our struggle is. Some of us will be resolute, telling our friends that we'll get through this, as after all, a life without hope is no life at all. However now that people have been prevented from going out, the online chatter is at breaking point. Suddenly we're all experts in what the government 'should' have done, we've all understood the logistical variations of this mystery 'virus', we've all researched what every other country has done, and we've all worked out what the solution 'should' have been. More than that, we feel the need to tell everybody about our own discoveries. Of course the fact of the matter is that none of us have a clue. We're all scared (for ourselves, our loved ones, our industry, even humanity), and are all simply 'acting out' that fear in the only space that's left for us to roam - social media.
We see a 'cure' or a 'prevention' tweet and it becomes our civil duty to share it amongst our friends and followers, as we all attempt to save the world. Of course that's all we've shared is 'fake news', or rather 'fake hope', as hope is the only thing that we have.
I've long blogged about the mental health crises in our industry, and I've always maintained that the industry hasn't created these illnesses, but rather our industry attracts people who are more susceptible to mental illness, as it provides all of us with an altered reality. We can all pretend to live in a different world for a while. A show (ironically given the pressures around doing one), is almost a mental health break. So what now for an entire industry that revels in living in the 'other' now that it's suddenly been catapulted into the here and now, and what's more, the here and now is even more unstable than our industry. To add to the issue nobody amongst us has immunity. For sure there are the wealthy amongst us that can ride this out, but they are few and far between. From graduates to jobbing performers/techies everybody has had the rug pulled from out of them.
People with anxiety who are already trying to make sense of the world have suddenly lost their anchor, people with depression that can see no good in the world can get that view confirmed within seconds on social media, people with OCD desperately trying to control their environment as it is suddenly find themselves in a world that can't control itself. And so the list goes on. The one thing that we can be sure about is that every mental illness will be made worse by this pandemic. People can no longer run to the theatre to escape their own 'minds'.
So I guess that this is the perfect opportunity to hit these conditions head on. How many people that deliberately keep themselves busy in order not to think have suddenly found themselves in self isolation? As an aside isn't it weird how something like 'self isolation' which sounds like something straight out of a B movie has suddenly become part of our every day language? Anyway I digress.
There are lots of therapies available online - why not check out what's on offer? https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/ Whilst the NHS is struggling right now there is still free help out there. See the enforced downtime as an opportunity to 'reset' and 'reboot'. How many of you have kept putting it off because you've allegedly been too busy? Well you ain't busy now - get proactive about your mental health.
Limit your online surfing - it'll either make you more worried, more angry, or bizarrely make you feel more isolated. Even in self isolation it's possible to live more in the 'real world'. FaceTime and Skype your friends. I went to pop a post up on one of The MTA groups the other day, and instead opted for a livestream as I was aware that a number of my graduates were either stuck in far away places or stuck in self isolation in the UK. So potentially even 'seeing' and 'hearing' my post was more reassuring than some written thing. I mean I clearly could have made it worse for some of them, but they had the option to turn me off (and I'm confident that at various times over the years they've yearned to do that - so it was a win/win)
Somehow this will pass, and somehow we will all get through it.
Our industry has an amazing sense of community, and right now we need that community more than ever. As you're checking on your friends to see if they have a cough and a fever, maybe check on how their mental health is doing too? I've long believed that mental illness is at epidemic levels within our industry, and I suspect that the physical pandemic will make those levels raise even higher. Now is a time for actioning help, not living in denial it's a great #time4change
24/7 Equity mental health and well-being helpline: 0800 917 6470
I can't be the only one that never thought that we'd see such a day in the UK (or indeed around the world), but here it is and an entire industry is left reeling as each individual tries to work out 'what now?'
Of course we all knew that it was coming. Broadway closed last week so it's been a waiting game since then. The big difference of course is that our American colleagues earn substantially more money than the jobbing actor/techie in the UK. There is more chance that they've saved up for the inevitable rainy day scenario. That said some people just don't have it in them to save regardless of income, so this isn't guaranteed, however the potential to save is there. I don't think that the majority of the UK industry (on and off stage) have this dilemma. We all live in a somewhat hand to mouth environment, and have long since consoled ourselves with the fact that our souls are full even if our bank accounts aren't. The majority of our industry need the next wage packet, which is why you see people closing in a successful show on the Saturday, going to work in their 'crap job' or 'muggle job' by the Monday. In a way it's kept us all grounded for years, it's hard to get 'up yourself' when you know that you'll be back in civvy street within a few weeks.
So suddenly an entire industry faces a very uncertain future. We all go online to tell the world how frightened we are, and we feel the need to let everybody know what our struggle is. Some of us will be resolute, telling our friends that we'll get through this, as after all, a life without hope is no life at all. However now that people have been prevented from going out, the online chatter is at breaking point. Suddenly we're all experts in what the government 'should' have done, we've all understood the logistical variations of this mystery 'virus', we've all researched what every other country has done, and we've all worked out what the solution 'should' have been. More than that, we feel the need to tell everybody about our own discoveries. Of course the fact of the matter is that none of us have a clue. We're all scared (for ourselves, our loved ones, our industry, even humanity), and are all simply 'acting out' that fear in the only space that's left for us to roam - social media.
We see a 'cure' or a 'prevention' tweet and it becomes our civil duty to share it amongst our friends and followers, as we all attempt to save the world. Of course that's all we've shared is 'fake news', or rather 'fake hope', as hope is the only thing that we have.
I've long blogged about the mental health crises in our industry, and I've always maintained that the industry hasn't created these illnesses, but rather our industry attracts people who are more susceptible to mental illness, as it provides all of us with an altered reality. We can all pretend to live in a different world for a while. A show (ironically given the pressures around doing one), is almost a mental health break. So what now for an entire industry that revels in living in the 'other' now that it's suddenly been catapulted into the here and now, and what's more, the here and now is even more unstable than our industry. To add to the issue nobody amongst us has immunity. For sure there are the wealthy amongst us that can ride this out, but they are few and far between. From graduates to jobbing performers/techies everybody has had the rug pulled from out of them.
People with anxiety who are already trying to make sense of the world have suddenly lost their anchor, people with depression that can see no good in the world can get that view confirmed within seconds on social media, people with OCD desperately trying to control their environment as it is suddenly find themselves in a world that can't control itself. And so the list goes on. The one thing that we can be sure about is that every mental illness will be made worse by this pandemic. People can no longer run to the theatre to escape their own 'minds'.
So I guess that this is the perfect opportunity to hit these conditions head on. How many people that deliberately keep themselves busy in order not to think have suddenly found themselves in self isolation? As an aside isn't it weird how something like 'self isolation' which sounds like something straight out of a B movie has suddenly become part of our every day language? Anyway I digress.
There are lots of therapies available online - why not check out what's on offer? https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/ Whilst the NHS is struggling right now there is still free help out there. See the enforced downtime as an opportunity to 'reset' and 'reboot'. How many of you have kept putting it off because you've allegedly been too busy? Well you ain't busy now - get proactive about your mental health.
Limit your online surfing - it'll either make you more worried, more angry, or bizarrely make you feel more isolated. Even in self isolation it's possible to live more in the 'real world'. FaceTime and Skype your friends. I went to pop a post up on one of The MTA groups the other day, and instead opted for a livestream as I was aware that a number of my graduates were either stuck in far away places or stuck in self isolation in the UK. So potentially even 'seeing' and 'hearing' my post was more reassuring than some written thing. I mean I clearly could have made it worse for some of them, but they had the option to turn me off (and I'm confident that at various times over the years they've yearned to do that - so it was a win/win)
Somehow this will pass, and somehow we will all get through it.
Our industry has an amazing sense of community, and right now we need that community more than ever. As you're checking on your friends to see if they have a cough and a fever, maybe check on how their mental health is doing too? I've long believed that mental illness is at epidemic levels within our industry, and I suspect that the physical pandemic will make those levels raise even higher. Now is a time for actioning help, not living in denial it's a great #time4change
24/7 Equity mental health and well-being helpline: 0800 917 6470
Saturday, 7 March 2020
Has the education system 'broken' vocational training?
How many wannabe actors or indeed their parents have ever read a casting brief? My suspicion is not very many. Let's face it, when you're young and naive you believe that your talent is so great that one of the great directors or producers is going to spot you in a school play/amdram production, pluck you away from your small-town sensibilities, and whisk you off to the 'bright lights'. As a supportive parent, it's unfeasible to think that your child won't succeed. After all - they clearly have 'it' (whatever 'it' is).
In reality, a casting brief is a set of requirements for a specific role/job - what it never asks for, is your qualification. No brief goes out requiring a BA(Hons) in theatre, or a BTEC in performing arts. So why are colleges flocking to hook up with universities in order to offer these golden pieces of paper then? Quite simply it's all to do with finance. All government funding streams or government top up streams require a college to prove via examination results that they are doing a good job. So when the drama colleges suddenly started to offer degrees just over a decade ago, it wasn't because they felt that it benefitted the future careers of their students, as they know (like we all know), that their degree isn't really the 'back-up' that parents seem to think that it is. If you decide on a career swap, you'll be going back to college anyway in order to be trained in the area that you've chosen your new career to be. However what they don't tell you, is that lots of colleges will also allow you to do these educational top-ups with proof of a different kind of education, and with proof of your career to date. Once you're into postgrad education the criteria for entry is more reflective of life. Of course, by this point you've used up all your government-supported financial help, so you are entirely funding your new career path on your own.
However, for many non-vocational colleges performing arts courses are a complete cash cow. We are in an oversubscribed industry, with everybody secretly thinking that their talent will be enough to give them a career, therefore it doesn't matter where they train. I once did some work with some 3rd years on a musical theatre degree course at a regular university. They had recently just finished a self-led project aka cheap to run as it required no staff involvement aka a waste of time. They were paying £27K to train themselves. I auditioned someone from another university who was preparing for their showcase. . . a student-directed showcase, which staff could be called in to assist them in should they have a difficulty. This particular student acknowledged that the showcase was simply an end of course show - there was absolutely no chance of an agent coming to see them in their student-led performance. They had been working on the showcase (and their showcase alone) for the whole of the term. They were also paying £27K to train themselves.
As drama colleges clambered to get affiliated to universities with the promise of better resources, more finance, infrastructure support, what some of them lost sight of was the training experience. As the universities saw the numbers of people applying for these courses they increased their intake, and indeed in a few instances increased the number of courses that they were offering too. What they didn't do though was increase the quality of the training.
I taught in HE when this was beginning to happen. I suddenly found myself teaching an acting to camera class with a cohort of students that included students majoring in things like graphic design, engineering, in fact, you name it, there was probably somebody in the class that was studying it. The module had been diluted from its specialism into a 'filler' module for anybody in the university. I resigned after 1 semester of teaching, having taught the course for 2 years previously. The students that needed that module were fighting to get on it but had to fight people that had no requirement of the skillset.
We know that we're in an oversubscribed industry. We also know that the situation has got worse,
with new courses and colleges popping up every year. The long-established colleges have also been expanding, be that with new courses or just by increasing their numbers. Courses that once operated with 20-40 students can now have in excess of 150 students/year. It's the simple economics of supply and demand, isn't it? If you're auditioning thousands of people every year for a handful of places, why wouldn't you expand your model in order to accommodate more students and create a bigger revenue? With a bigger revenue stream, you can build bigger and better premises, which will attract more students, which increases the demand.
And so it continues.
Suddenly training actors has become a lucrative industry for some. Alongside the weird and wonderful new courses that are springing up, we have the bread and butter courses which create a cunning revenue stream for the colleges. Students not actually ready for a 3-year training course, can now easily find a 'foundation course' which will charge them to get prepared for training. If you've done a degree where you've been primarily self-taught, you'll need additional (aka 'some') training, so pop on a post-grad course as well. The bread and butter of the already lucrative filling of the 'main course'.
Obviously having founded a college which pioneered the 2-year model I already have some questions about the traditional 3-year model (though also completely understand why lots of people need that time to solidify things, I just realise that not everybody does). So I have even more questions now that training to be a performer is taking some people 5 years - or to be more specific is costing people 5 years worth of fees. Yet those same colleges are being urged to think about the socio-economic diversity of their student intake.
It's a tough model to break though. Most wannabe performers grow up wanting to go to one of the 'main' colleges. The colleges that they've seen in programmes since they were little. They don't differentiate the fact that they're seeing that college's name so often because they've been going for 50 or more years, or indeed that they're seeing a college's name because that college is spewing out hundreds of wannabe performers every year, so if only 5% of them are doing well, it's enough to make an impact on the programme references. It's interesting to note that none of these established colleges readily publicise their long term stats. How many of the class of 2005, for example, have actually managed to have a sustained career? Instead, they'll (understandably) focus on the alumni that have the more popular public following, even though they might have graduated decades ago.
The market is cornered. You grow up wanting to be a performer going to the college that your idol went to. You're not good enough for that yet, so they pop you on their foundation course (and charge you for the privilege of course). You're happy to be there, as, after all, your idol went there so it's bound to be great, and surely the £10K investment in the foundation course will get repaid when you secure funding for their main course at the end of the year. Of course in reality that only happens for a few people, the others are still unsuccessful at their dream college, but now they're also £10k poorer, their parents have bought into the myth that they need a degree, so off they pop to the nearest university to get the 'golden ticket' degree. 4 years later and over £50K poorer (adding together living costs and tuition costs), they leave college, with no chance of working, haven't got a clue how to get work (as a lot of the university courses genuinely don't teach you that skill, just check a few internet forums for proof of the number of graduates asking really basic questions around working in the industry), are unable to sign up for Spotlight (which automatically limits their career. . . I mean as unfair as that statement is, it is also a fact) and find themselves looking for a new career, with their parents lauding the fact that their 'fall back' degree has proven to be a saviour.
And so it continues.
Meanwhile, for those of us that have resolutely stayed in vocational training, and have remained small by choice, in order to maintain a good staff/student ratio - our students are being hit from all angles. They have the 'grown-ups' getting concerned because they're not getting a formal qualification, financially they are not entitled to any government support at all - even though they are working in excess of 40 contact hours/week. As they scramble around looking for sponsors organisations like Equity and Spotlight, who are quick to take their money to join up to the union and the register, won't put a purely vocational college on their self assessed 'approved' list, which would allow us to at least submit our students for certain bursary awards like those funded by SOLT, solely because we don't offer a formal qualification. Yet we're the only college to maintain an open record of every single one of our graduates - proving that we're more likely to create a sustainable career for our students than a lot of the other colleges on their list. So to recap, the training is valid enough for a career (our students can join both Equity and Spotlight), but we can't knock down the walls of the establishment in order to get closer to some much needed financial help for our students, because we don't offer a 'golden ticket' degree. That'll be the same degree that you never see requested on a casting brief. Where do most of those casting briefs get posted? On Spotlight.
This week we've seen a long-established college that took the poison chalice of a university 'merger' close. We've already seen other courses at other colleges get shut down as unviable. Is this a trend, or just a few much-needed pruning exercises? As the established colleges get bigger and the complaints about the numbers increase, we see no decline in the number of applicants, as parents (and students) accept the 'herd' mentality, as (please refer back to the first paragraph), and believe that the 'cream will always rise', and 'they have to learn to deal with the competition anyway'. Personally I'd rather my child learn to deal with competition at a school sports day, not when they're 16 and I'm being asked to pay £9k-£14k a year, but maybe that's because I don't have access to that sort of money? The college buildings get bigger and better, enticing more and more people that "College X" is the go-to place - just look at the number of rooms it has? Of course, they only need 120 studios because they have so many students, but a college building of that size will also increase its running costs, so best take an extra 50 students a year in order to support it.
And so it continues.
Since I opened The MTA in 2009 I've been shouting about the fact that our industry needs regulating. To be clear - that's not by the old boy network that has been effectively self-regulating since the start of the time. It needs an independent body to look at ALL the courses and ALL the colleges to see who is really delivering what. Audit the staff, audit the finance, audit the true story around pastoral care (don't get me started on that one again), and audit the true facts of sustainable careers. The government should stop funding those degrees that are purely providing 'life skills' yet claiming to be offering a 'career'. I completely buy into the idea that a college education is great, but when funds are short, let's not be funding a degree that isn't worth the paper that it's written on. Fund the courses that are getting the results. In other words let's get some transparency out there and stop the myth that has been co-created by so many people and organisations, all of whom have a vested interest in the findings. Then let's get those facts out to schools and the wannabes and their parents.
In reality, a casting brief is a set of requirements for a specific role/job - what it never asks for, is your qualification. No brief goes out requiring a BA(Hons) in theatre, or a BTEC in performing arts. So why are colleges flocking to hook up with universities in order to offer these golden pieces of paper then? Quite simply it's all to do with finance. All government funding streams or government top up streams require a college to prove via examination results that they are doing a good job. So when the drama colleges suddenly started to offer degrees just over a decade ago, it wasn't because they felt that it benefitted the future careers of their students, as they know (like we all know), that their degree isn't really the 'back-up' that parents seem to think that it is. If you decide on a career swap, you'll be going back to college anyway in order to be trained in the area that you've chosen your new career to be. However what they don't tell you, is that lots of colleges will also allow you to do these educational top-ups with proof of a different kind of education, and with proof of your career to date. Once you're into postgrad education the criteria for entry is more reflective of life. Of course, by this point you've used up all your government-supported financial help, so you are entirely funding your new career path on your own.
However, for many non-vocational colleges performing arts courses are a complete cash cow. We are in an oversubscribed industry, with everybody secretly thinking that their talent will be enough to give them a career, therefore it doesn't matter where they train. I once did some work with some 3rd years on a musical theatre degree course at a regular university. They had recently just finished a self-led project aka cheap to run as it required no staff involvement aka a waste of time. They were paying £27K to train themselves. I auditioned someone from another university who was preparing for their showcase. . . a student-directed showcase, which staff could be called in to assist them in should they have a difficulty. This particular student acknowledged that the showcase was simply an end of course show - there was absolutely no chance of an agent coming to see them in their student-led performance. They had been working on the showcase (and their showcase alone) for the whole of the term. They were also paying £27K to train themselves.
As drama colleges clambered to get affiliated to universities with the promise of better resources, more finance, infrastructure support, what some of them lost sight of was the training experience. As the universities saw the numbers of people applying for these courses they increased their intake, and indeed in a few instances increased the number of courses that they were offering too. What they didn't do though was increase the quality of the training.
I taught in HE when this was beginning to happen. I suddenly found myself teaching an acting to camera class with a cohort of students that included students majoring in things like graphic design, engineering, in fact, you name it, there was probably somebody in the class that was studying it. The module had been diluted from its specialism into a 'filler' module for anybody in the university. I resigned after 1 semester of teaching, having taught the course for 2 years previously. The students that needed that module were fighting to get on it but had to fight people that had no requirement of the skillset.
We know that we're in an oversubscribed industry. We also know that the situation has got worse,
with new courses and colleges popping up every year. The long-established colleges have also been expanding, be that with new courses or just by increasing their numbers. Courses that once operated with 20-40 students can now have in excess of 150 students/year. It's the simple economics of supply and demand, isn't it? If you're auditioning thousands of people every year for a handful of places, why wouldn't you expand your model in order to accommodate more students and create a bigger revenue? With a bigger revenue stream, you can build bigger and better premises, which will attract more students, which increases the demand.
And so it continues.
Suddenly training actors has become a lucrative industry for some. Alongside the weird and wonderful new courses that are springing up, we have the bread and butter courses which create a cunning revenue stream for the colleges. Students not actually ready for a 3-year training course, can now easily find a 'foundation course' which will charge them to get prepared for training. If you've done a degree where you've been primarily self-taught, you'll need additional (aka 'some') training, so pop on a post-grad course as well. The bread and butter of the already lucrative filling of the 'main course'.
Obviously having founded a college which pioneered the 2-year model I already have some questions about the traditional 3-year model (though also completely understand why lots of people need that time to solidify things, I just realise that not everybody does). So I have even more questions now that training to be a performer is taking some people 5 years - or to be more specific is costing people 5 years worth of fees. Yet those same colleges are being urged to think about the socio-economic diversity of their student intake.
It's a tough model to break though. Most wannabe performers grow up wanting to go to one of the 'main' colleges. The colleges that they've seen in programmes since they were little. They don't differentiate the fact that they're seeing that college's name so often because they've been going for 50 or more years, or indeed that they're seeing a college's name because that college is spewing out hundreds of wannabe performers every year, so if only 5% of them are doing well, it's enough to make an impact on the programme references. It's interesting to note that none of these established colleges readily publicise their long term stats. How many of the class of 2005, for example, have actually managed to have a sustained career? Instead, they'll (understandably) focus on the alumni that have the more popular public following, even though they might have graduated decades ago.
The market is cornered. You grow up wanting to be a performer going to the college that your idol went to. You're not good enough for that yet, so they pop you on their foundation course (and charge you for the privilege of course). You're happy to be there, as, after all, your idol went there so it's bound to be great, and surely the £10K investment in the foundation course will get repaid when you secure funding for their main course at the end of the year. Of course in reality that only happens for a few people, the others are still unsuccessful at their dream college, but now they're also £10k poorer, their parents have bought into the myth that they need a degree, so off they pop to the nearest university to get the 'golden ticket' degree. 4 years later and over £50K poorer (adding together living costs and tuition costs), they leave college, with no chance of working, haven't got a clue how to get work (as a lot of the university courses genuinely don't teach you that skill, just check a few internet forums for proof of the number of graduates asking really basic questions around working in the industry), are unable to sign up for Spotlight (which automatically limits their career. . . I mean as unfair as that statement is, it is also a fact) and find themselves looking for a new career, with their parents lauding the fact that their 'fall back' degree has proven to be a saviour.
And so it continues.
Meanwhile, for those of us that have resolutely stayed in vocational training, and have remained small by choice, in order to maintain a good staff/student ratio - our students are being hit from all angles. They have the 'grown-ups' getting concerned because they're not getting a formal qualification, financially they are not entitled to any government support at all - even though they are working in excess of 40 contact hours/week. As they scramble around looking for sponsors organisations like Equity and Spotlight, who are quick to take their money to join up to the union and the register, won't put a purely vocational college on their self assessed 'approved' list, which would allow us to at least submit our students for certain bursary awards like those funded by SOLT, solely because we don't offer a formal qualification. Yet we're the only college to maintain an open record of every single one of our graduates - proving that we're more likely to create a sustainable career for our students than a lot of the other colleges on their list. So to recap, the training is valid enough for a career (our students can join both Equity and Spotlight), but we can't knock down the walls of the establishment in order to get closer to some much needed financial help for our students, because we don't offer a 'golden ticket' degree. That'll be the same degree that you never see requested on a casting brief. Where do most of those casting briefs get posted? On Spotlight.
This week we've seen a long-established college that took the poison chalice of a university 'merger' close. We've already seen other courses at other colleges get shut down as unviable. Is this a trend, or just a few much-needed pruning exercises? As the established colleges get bigger and the complaints about the numbers increase, we see no decline in the number of applicants, as parents (and students) accept the 'herd' mentality, as (please refer back to the first paragraph), and believe that the 'cream will always rise', and 'they have to learn to deal with the competition anyway'. Personally I'd rather my child learn to deal with competition at a school sports day, not when they're 16 and I'm being asked to pay £9k-£14k a year, but maybe that's because I don't have access to that sort of money? The college buildings get bigger and better, enticing more and more people that "College X" is the go-to place - just look at the number of rooms it has? Of course, they only need 120 studios because they have so many students, but a college building of that size will also increase its running costs, so best take an extra 50 students a year in order to support it.
And so it continues.
Since I opened The MTA in 2009 I've been shouting about the fact that our industry needs regulating. To be clear - that's not by the old boy network that has been effectively self-regulating since the start of the time. It needs an independent body to look at ALL the courses and ALL the colleges to see who is really delivering what. Audit the staff, audit the finance, audit the true story around pastoral care (don't get me started on that one again), and audit the true facts of sustainable careers. The government should stop funding those degrees that are purely providing 'life skills' yet claiming to be offering a 'career'. I completely buy into the idea that a college education is great, but when funds are short, let's not be funding a degree that isn't worth the paper that it's written on. Fund the courses that are getting the results. In other words let's get some transparency out there and stop the myth that has been co-created by so many people and organisations, all of whom have a vested interest in the findings. Then let's get those facts out to schools and the wannabes and their parents.
Thursday, 22 August 2019
Losing your voice
If you're reading this it's because the Charity Commission have now completed their process of raising enquiries with The MTA ( a process which was incorrectly described by others as an 'investigation' - accuracy is everything, people!)
We have always been 99.9% sure that the complaint was a vexatious grievance, and whilst we still don't know the source of the complaint (confidentiality is key to the commission, and rightly so), we have a really good idea. We are always open to being told we could do things better, especially by our Regulator, but I mean, when you've been shown evidence from several sources that a couple of people have a vendetta out against you, you sort of lessen the odds really don't you?
We knew about the complaint about 4 weeks before The Stage ran with a fair article, but alarming headline of 'Musical Theatre Academy investigated over safeguarding concerns' - it was only actually if you got through The Stage's paywall to read the article that you discovered that we weren't being 'investigated' at all, but rather the Charity Commission had raised certain questions with our Trustees as a result of having received a single complaint. My sadness about the article being ran prior to the Charity Commission's conclusion was that it a) meant that we had to inform our students about the ongoing situation and they were all having a lovely old time of it in Deadwood (rehearsing Calamity Jane) and b) I was aware that several people online were going to have a field day.
Initially I thought that the Charity Commission must have a policy that required them to contact the Press whenever they sent out letters from their compliance team; only weeks later I learned that they have no such policy, meaning that the press had been contacted by the complainant(s).
Having spoken up about Mental Health in the Arts for the past 10 years it seems that you make a lot of people very cross. So I was bracing myself for the salacious comments based on . . . well nothing! What I had to work very hard at though was not commenting on the various posts. For those people that know me. . . that was really hard.
To put this all into context the 'vendetta' had already been running for several months so I was aware that a lot more people might have heard some of the 'stories' that were gathering momentum, and in fairness to everyone - if you just took 'those' stories on face value, there would have indeed been a serious issue that needed addressing. However the stories were (& indeed remain) a complete fabrication, literally no part of them were true. So how do you fight an alternative reality? Well I guess you don't. You wait for the truth to out.
Annoyingly The Stage broke the story on the day of a college performance - annoying because the show was great and didn't deserve to be overshadowed by anything. To add to the bizarre nature of this whole thing, that same morning, the director of that show had written a long twitter thread about how The MTA was clearly run through mutual respect between staff and students, and how our whole school approach to mental health really worked.
Watching the resulting conversations on line were fascinating though - especially as for the first time I couldn't comment. Two discussions particularly caught my eye. My favorite was probably the person who claimed that I had threatened to sue them for once making a disparaging remark about the college. A picture was painted of a poor, defenceless 'single person operating stage school' commentator simply giving their opinion, when I, as the 'big boss' of a drama college waded in all legal guns a blazing to stop them speaking? The reality was somewhat different to this. This was a person that is now on their 4th year constantly making disparaging remarks about the college on any forum that mentions drama schools. As for the 'small time performing arts school operator' they were or indeed still are the owner of a franchise operation, so not exactly the 'lone operator', even more ironic given The MTA's independent status. That said, I categorically knew that I'd never threatened anybody with legal action over a FB post. However recent events had knocked my confidence for sure, so I suddenly found myself checking in with a couple of colleagues who had been part of that online debate to check that I hadn't lost my mind. The relief when they confirmed my recollection of the discussion was palpable. The 'lone operator' had (probably unwittingly in fairness) merged a truth. Another commentator on the original thread had mentioned that I 'should' sue them for their 'damaging remarks', however this poster had clearly recollected it as me actually threatening legal action against them. And so their version of the truth lives on. Attention to detail is everything.
Then on twitter it was even more interesting, as a blogger went out of their way with an outrageous allegation, and accused The MTA of 'unhelpfully fetishising mental health issues'. They'd heard stories apparently - well see above for those I'm sure. They clearly thought that they were onto something when the Chair of the Board actually started to engage with them. The blogger who made the claim had twice been booked into the college to see for themselves the whole school approach to mental health working. They had contacted me asking to observe an audition day, and requesting a separate meeting with me. We have an open door policy so it's a no brainer. However I've been around a bit, and suspected that all was not what it seemed.
I named to my team that I suspected that this person was digging for dirt, that due to the timing of the request they might have heard some of these false rumours being put out there, but when you don't have any to hide, you just welcome people in and offer them a shovel don't you? The first time they cancelled the night before, the second time they just didn't turn up. Not the best investigative reporting it has to be said. Our offer to visit the school is still wide open to them, so maybe they'd actually like to come and see for themselves what it is we're actually doing.
What amazed me though was quite how many people went out on a limb to name The MTA as safe, even before contacting me in private to find out what was going on. As one of them said to me - 'you'll find out who's got your back now', and my goodness they were right. Emails, phone calls, texts just checking that I was OK and if the college was OK. Some of those people even went public with their support. Equally interesting to note though was quite how many did the quiet nod of approval to me, but edged their bets in public. I mean I don't blame them - but it's interesting isn't it? We work in a small industry so you wouldn't want to back the wrong horse. We are all at the mercy of our reputations, so best not to tarnish it by association (even if you're happy to do so in private). I will add the disclaimer here though how some people named that they weren't going to publically comment on it all, because they simply didn't want to stoke the fire.
As the rumours flew around (and my goodness I heard a fair few), it was actually the students that were batting them out of the ball park. You see transparency is really useful. With nothing to hide you can tell everybody everything. So whilst I wasn't allowed my voice - the facts were being stated, as everybody knew them. We had already read out the Charity Commission's letter to our current students in its entirety, so that they would feel safe, and 'in the loop' so to speak.
The hardest day was a week after The Stage published its article. I googled The Musical Theatre Academy only to see that 4th on the google listing was The Stage's article - headline a blazing out for all to see. 10 years of working ethically, 10 years of building up a multi-award winning college, all wiped away by some lies. That was harsh. That was the day that I started to write this - as I needed to find my voice again, if only for myself.
It's really interesting in this day and age how things can become 'fact' because somebody's told you, or somebody's written it down in a social media post. This wasn't the first time that I'd had experience of this phenomenon, but it was the first time that it had hit so hard on target. It's like the Hunger Games version of 'They Said, You Said'. If you take the time to bore down to the truth those facts aren't facts at all, but in reality who does that? After all, who would lie just for kicks, or because they're ill, or because they're on the defensive? By default we work off an assumption that people are telling us the truth. Fake News is a great term isn't it? Created for these very scenarios.
We worked openly and swiftly with the Charity Commission. Our Chair of the Board was rigorous and thorough in his own fact finding. Again a strange position for me to be on the outside of something that only existed because I had created it. At all times we kept our students up to speed with how things were progressing.
A few months after the initial letter had landed we found ourselves in a meeting with the Charity Commission as there were some final points to discuss and clarify. It was felt that a face to face meeting would bring the compliance case to a swifter conclusion than email ping pong. The meeting was robust and fair. We knew (and literally everybody involved in charity work had told me) that some suggestions for improvement would be made, but all things that would make The MTA stronger and even more accountable, so all points of learning that we welcomed and will be implementing straight away - but it should be noted that all of these points were about clearly recording the good practice that we were already doing.
Which brings us to today - where the Charity Commission has officially informed us that they have no concerns about what we're doing. They've given us helpful advice about how to develop our policies and will not be conducting any further "investigation" into The MTA, even though for a few months now, a misleading headline suggested that an "investigation" was already taking place
Throughout it all I noted with interest two specific things that were said online:
1) Somebody mentioned that any "investigation" would be a white wash - meaning that even before the compliance case had even started a group of people had decided that regardless of the outcome we must be in the wrong. Whereas in reality the compliance case was really thorough, and had there been any irregularities or wrong doing - they would have been 'discovered' and it would have led to a statutory investigation. As an independent college the Charity Commission held us accountable, and I believe that to be a good thing
2) The blogger questioned whether we were 'sin free' and concluded that we weren't but with what evidence? Firstly he made the point that we're a business not a 'community outreach programme', well you know sometimes in this world businesses do exist that are trying to simply achieve their objectives. Our aim has always been to send people out into the 'real world' industry-ready with access to free ongoing support. That is our objective, and that is exactly what we do. Then secondly the old favorite of 'no smoke without fire'. I too have probably always believed that adage - however this is what I've learned, and in truth I can't believe that it's taken me so long to get it. We work in a profession that excels in distraction, where directors can almost force an audience to look at one part of the stage as the 'illusion' is executed on the other. So next time you get sucked into a 'no smoke without fire' thought, remain curious. As the smoke that you're aware of might just be the distraction from the real fire that's been started by somebody else. After all theatre is all smoke and mirrors isn't it? Maybe some of us would be better to look in the mirror, as opposed to simply look at the smoke?
To conclude I'd like to give a heartfelt thanks to the people that really did support the college throughout this time, and indeed to my friends and colleagues that would check in with me periodically to ensure that I was OK.
In September we celebrate both the graduation of the class of 2019 and 10 years of training The MTA way - there is much to celebrate, and we will do so having been held accountable to the principles that I founded the college with back in 2009. The principles that said that the students and their health would be at the forefront of all training, and the principles that promised our students that all of their fees would be spent on premises, productions and staff, and the principles that stated that our college would be there to support them beyond their training.
We have always been 99.9% sure that the complaint was a vexatious grievance, and whilst we still don't know the source of the complaint (confidentiality is key to the commission, and rightly so), we have a really good idea. We are always open to being told we could do things better, especially by our Regulator, but I mean, when you've been shown evidence from several sources that a couple of people have a vendetta out against you, you sort of lessen the odds really don't you?
We knew about the complaint about 4 weeks before The Stage ran with a fair article, but alarming headline of 'Musical Theatre Academy investigated over safeguarding concerns' - it was only actually if you got through The Stage's paywall to read the article that you discovered that we weren't being 'investigated' at all, but rather the Charity Commission had raised certain questions with our Trustees as a result of having received a single complaint. My sadness about the article being ran prior to the Charity Commission's conclusion was that it a) meant that we had to inform our students about the ongoing situation and they were all having a lovely old time of it in Deadwood (rehearsing Calamity Jane) and b) I was aware that several people online were going to have a field day.
Initially I thought that the Charity Commission must have a policy that required them to contact the Press whenever they sent out letters from their compliance team; only weeks later I learned that they have no such policy, meaning that the press had been contacted by the complainant(s).
Having spoken up about Mental Health in the Arts for the past 10 years it seems that you make a lot of people very cross. So I was bracing myself for the salacious comments based on . . . well nothing! What I had to work very hard at though was not commenting on the various posts. For those people that know me. . . that was really hard.
To put this all into context the 'vendetta' had already been running for several months so I was aware that a lot more people might have heard some of the 'stories' that were gathering momentum, and in fairness to everyone - if you just took 'those' stories on face value, there would have indeed been a serious issue that needed addressing. However the stories were (& indeed remain) a complete fabrication, literally no part of them were true. So how do you fight an alternative reality? Well I guess you don't. You wait for the truth to out.
Annoyingly The Stage broke the story on the day of a college performance - annoying because the show was great and didn't deserve to be overshadowed by anything. To add to the bizarre nature of this whole thing, that same morning, the director of that show had written a long twitter thread about how The MTA was clearly run through mutual respect between staff and students, and how our whole school approach to mental health really worked.
Watching the resulting conversations on line were fascinating though - especially as for the first time I couldn't comment. Two discussions particularly caught my eye. My favorite was probably the person who claimed that I had threatened to sue them for once making a disparaging remark about the college. A picture was painted of a poor, defenceless 'single person operating stage school' commentator simply giving their opinion, when I, as the 'big boss' of a drama college waded in all legal guns a blazing to stop them speaking? The reality was somewhat different to this. This was a person that is now on their 4th year constantly making disparaging remarks about the college on any forum that mentions drama schools. As for the 'small time performing arts school operator' they were or indeed still are the owner of a franchise operation, so not exactly the 'lone operator', even more ironic given The MTA's independent status. That said, I categorically knew that I'd never threatened anybody with legal action over a FB post. However recent events had knocked my confidence for sure, so I suddenly found myself checking in with a couple of colleagues who had been part of that online debate to check that I hadn't lost my mind. The relief when they confirmed my recollection of the discussion was palpable. The 'lone operator' had (probably unwittingly in fairness) merged a truth. Another commentator on the original thread had mentioned that I 'should' sue them for their 'damaging remarks', however this poster had clearly recollected it as me actually threatening legal action against them. And so their version of the truth lives on. Attention to detail is everything.
Then on twitter it was even more interesting, as a blogger went out of their way with an outrageous allegation, and accused The MTA of 'unhelpfully fetishising mental health issues'. They'd heard stories apparently - well see above for those I'm sure. They clearly thought that they were onto something when the Chair of the Board actually started to engage with them. The blogger who made the claim had twice been booked into the college to see for themselves the whole school approach to mental health working. They had contacted me asking to observe an audition day, and requesting a separate meeting with me. We have an open door policy so it's a no brainer. However I've been around a bit, and suspected that all was not what it seemed.
I named to my team that I suspected that this person was digging for dirt, that due to the timing of the request they might have heard some of these false rumours being put out there, but when you don't have any to hide, you just welcome people in and offer them a shovel don't you? The first time they cancelled the night before, the second time they just didn't turn up. Not the best investigative reporting it has to be said. Our offer to visit the school is still wide open to them, so maybe they'd actually like to come and see for themselves what it is we're actually doing.
What amazed me though was quite how many people went out on a limb to name The MTA as safe, even before contacting me in private to find out what was going on. As one of them said to me - 'you'll find out who's got your back now', and my goodness they were right. Emails, phone calls, texts just checking that I was OK and if the college was OK. Some of those people even went public with their support. Equally interesting to note though was quite how many did the quiet nod of approval to me, but edged their bets in public. I mean I don't blame them - but it's interesting isn't it? We work in a small industry so you wouldn't want to back the wrong horse. We are all at the mercy of our reputations, so best not to tarnish it by association (even if you're happy to do so in private). I will add the disclaimer here though how some people named that they weren't going to publically comment on it all, because they simply didn't want to stoke the fire.
As the rumours flew around (and my goodness I heard a fair few), it was actually the students that were batting them out of the ball park. You see transparency is really useful. With nothing to hide you can tell everybody everything. So whilst I wasn't allowed my voice - the facts were being stated, as everybody knew them. We had already read out the Charity Commission's letter to our current students in its entirety, so that they would feel safe, and 'in the loop' so to speak.
The hardest day was a week after The Stage published its article. I googled The Musical Theatre Academy only to see that 4th on the google listing was The Stage's article - headline a blazing out for all to see. 10 years of working ethically, 10 years of building up a multi-award winning college, all wiped away by some lies. That was harsh. That was the day that I started to write this - as I needed to find my voice again, if only for myself.
It's really interesting in this day and age how things can become 'fact' because somebody's told you, or somebody's written it down in a social media post. This wasn't the first time that I'd had experience of this phenomenon, but it was the first time that it had hit so hard on target. It's like the Hunger Games version of 'They Said, You Said'. If you take the time to bore down to the truth those facts aren't facts at all, but in reality who does that? After all, who would lie just for kicks, or because they're ill, or because they're on the defensive? By default we work off an assumption that people are telling us the truth. Fake News is a great term isn't it? Created for these very scenarios.
We worked openly and swiftly with the Charity Commission. Our Chair of the Board was rigorous and thorough in his own fact finding. Again a strange position for me to be on the outside of something that only existed because I had created it. At all times we kept our students up to speed with how things were progressing.
A few months after the initial letter had landed we found ourselves in a meeting with the Charity Commission as there were some final points to discuss and clarify. It was felt that a face to face meeting would bring the compliance case to a swifter conclusion than email ping pong. The meeting was robust and fair. We knew (and literally everybody involved in charity work had told me) that some suggestions for improvement would be made, but all things that would make The MTA stronger and even more accountable, so all points of learning that we welcomed and will be implementing straight away - but it should be noted that all of these points were about clearly recording the good practice that we were already doing.
Which brings us to today - where the Charity Commission has officially informed us that they have no concerns about what we're doing. They've given us helpful advice about how to develop our policies and will not be conducting any further "investigation" into The MTA, even though for a few months now, a misleading headline suggested that an "investigation" was already taking place
Throughout it all I noted with interest two specific things that were said online:
1) Somebody mentioned that any "investigation" would be a white wash - meaning that even before the compliance case had even started a group of people had decided that regardless of the outcome we must be in the wrong. Whereas in reality the compliance case was really thorough, and had there been any irregularities or wrong doing - they would have been 'discovered' and it would have led to a statutory investigation. As an independent college the Charity Commission held us accountable, and I believe that to be a good thing
2) The blogger questioned whether we were 'sin free' and concluded that we weren't but with what evidence? Firstly he made the point that we're a business not a 'community outreach programme', well you know sometimes in this world businesses do exist that are trying to simply achieve their objectives. Our aim has always been to send people out into the 'real world' industry-ready with access to free ongoing support. That is our objective, and that is exactly what we do. Then secondly the old favorite of 'no smoke without fire'. I too have probably always believed that adage - however this is what I've learned, and in truth I can't believe that it's taken me so long to get it. We work in a profession that excels in distraction, where directors can almost force an audience to look at one part of the stage as the 'illusion' is executed on the other. So next time you get sucked into a 'no smoke without fire' thought, remain curious. As the smoke that you're aware of might just be the distraction from the real fire that's been started by somebody else. After all theatre is all smoke and mirrors isn't it? Maybe some of us would be better to look in the mirror, as opposed to simply look at the smoke?
To conclude I'd like to give a heartfelt thanks to the people that really did support the college throughout this time, and indeed to my friends and colleagues that would check in with me periodically to ensure that I was OK.
In September we celebrate both the graduation of the class of 2019 and 10 years of training The MTA way - there is much to celebrate, and we will do so having been held accountable to the principles that I founded the college with back in 2009. The principles that said that the students and their health would be at the forefront of all training, and the principles that promised our students that all of their fees would be spent on premises, productions and staff, and the principles that stated that our college would be there to support them beyond their training.
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