I just wanted to post a retrospective on an experience I had working in college.
I was going to school for theatrical sound engineering at the time, and I was a top student in our small technical theatre program. One day the adjunct professor, I’ll call her Sam, invited me out for coffee. She said she had a great opportunity for me. She was the head sound engineer at a regional theatre near by, called Company A. However, Sam had gotten the awesome job opportunity to temporarily run sound for a bigger theatre in a nearby town, Company B, but she had made prior conflicting commitments to Company A to run around 40 shows. This includes running about 15 actors lav microphones, as well as many other various tasks like cleaning the mics after every show, checking speakers before every show, etc. Anyway, since she’d already committed to helping Company B, she would have to miss about 20 of the Company A performances. So, to reiterate, Sam double booked herself, and was sacrificing her established job where she was head sound engineer to work at a more prestigious nearby theatre company.
At the coffee meeting, Sam told me she would do me a great favor. Even though I was young and inexperienced, having only ever run a high school musical in my life, she would vouch for me to take over the 20 shows at Company A that she would be missing. She told me they’d give me a 100 dollar per week stipend to run the shows she would be missing. It sounded like a good, educational experience for me, and because I checked my other job schedule and there was no conflicts, I felt like I should agree to help Sam out.
I was working a 40 hour work week already at a fantastic employer where I was making above minimum wage, so I was happy. However, I wasn’t learning anything about my future career (sound engineering) there, so I was excited for the opportunity to work at a theatre too. Work would end at 5, and then I would go to the dress rehearsals. I didn’t know when I agreed to help, but Sam wasn’t going to be there for the last two dresses, preview, and opening night. Arguably, these are the hardest times to engineer because everything is completely new. It’s much easier to take over someone else’s sound engineering gig when the show is established, and the levels/routine is set. So, I was completely overwhelmed, having to work out all the kinks and problems that arise by myself without her professional help.
I remember one absolutely horrible night, I had gotten up at 6:30 am to get into work on time, worked a fully day, got off at 5:00 pm, went over to the theatre, and prepared for a dress rehearsal that would start at 7:30 pm. I remember thinking that running the show was harder than anything I’d done before. It’s nothing like running sound for high school musicals. Once the show was over, around 9:30 pm, I cleaned all the microphones and got everything ready for the next show. The directors pulled me aside, into his office, and proceeded to berate and belittle me until 1:00 am. He told me about every mistake I made, how the entire show sounded terrible, how nothing was loud enough. He went through the entire script, line by line, telling me what I did wrong at every juncture. It was completely overwhelming, I had to hold back tears, and I didn’t expect to be at the theatre that long. I got home at 3:00 in the morning and knew I had to be awake at 6:30 for work again.
In the following days, as the opening night inched closer, I was feeling completely horrible. I was overwhelmed by anxiety, and I was truly starting to hate the show, and theatre itself. On an off night, I managed to take a break and get dinner with a friend who strongly encouraged me to quit. She said she could tell it was taking a toll on my mental health, and that it wasn’t worth what I was getting out of it. The next morning, I sent in a resignation email.
In my mind, it was over. I had resigned effective immediately, and even though I’ve been conditioned to believe that’s unacceptable, the circumstances made it the only choice for me. I didn’t think it was necessarily the morally right thing to do, but it was my decision anyway.
Needless to say, Sam was very mad at me. She said, among other things, that I would still need to work the days I said I could work. My attempt to quit had failed.
I came in that night, and the director who held me there until 1:00 am came over and said some words to me. He said he apologized if he came across as harsh, and that this business is supposed to be fun and rewarding. I was actually touched by his taking accountability, but when he said I was clearly a sleep deprived just-finished-crying wreck, so I don’t recall his exact words.
About three weeks into the run, Sam emailed me saying she had in fact found a substitute and that I was “off the hook”. I was grateful, because the stress I was enduring before I sent the email was nothing compared to the stress I endured after. Obviously, having real paying audience members added stress, but having the same challenges while the entire company saw me as a jerk who was abandoning them made everything just terrible from a social perspective. I was still doing the work, but everyone resented me because I had tried to leave.
I was so grateful when those three weeks were over. Now, I have completely abandoned my dream of working in theatre in any capacity. I dropped out of the college program where Sam was my adjunct professor, and have decided focus on other pursuits instead.
I was expecting a $300 check, or three $100 checks, because of the agreed upon stipend and because I worked for 3 weeks. I filled out paper work with Company A upon being hired, submitted my W2 form or whatever, so I thought I would be getting mailed a paycheck and I’d get my final paycheck in person like the jobs I’d had before. I never got anything in the mail. I went down to the office three times to ask about my paycheck, and they said they didn’t have anything for me. So, in the end, I never got paid.