While it is true that theatre and the arts are not known to be great career paths financially, one should be able to assume that if they are hired into a full-time job as the head of one of 5 production departments (as well as the head of the overall production portion of the company) that barring the failure of the company, they would have work. One does not take usually take work at a 20+ year old institution assuming that the company will actually drop the department responsible for making the company’s product: in this case, theatre.

For a theatre to get rid of its production department (while maintaining its office staff) is as unheard of as Microsoft attempting to weather a financial storm by getting rid of all its programmers.

The complaint that I and others have with NYTW’s decision, and the way it was handled, is that the very people that were trusted to produce the product were the first to go, while others that ultimately were responsible for the company’s financial issues are kept on. The “greedy suits at the top”, as you call them, would not be in their positions if not for the hard work of the production staff. The only possible good thing about the way this was handled is that these highly skilled professionals have just over a month to try and find a new job before the current one ends. But the fact that those that made the decision to remove the department did not have the courtesy to deliver the news in person shows is quite telling: if they don’t consider the production department valuable to producing theatre, how did they get the job of running the theatre in the first place?

Wouldn’t it also be fair to say these people have “lost their livelihood” through their own shortsightedness, by choosing to develop skills and follow a career path well-known for not producing sustainable financial pictures? The whininess of your original post makes it sound like these people were somehow entitled to long careers filled with prosperity, and the greedy suits at the top somehow stole that entitlement away through their own misunderstandings. There are no guarantees in business, as in life, and to pursue a career as an “artist” is to accept the overwhelming odds stacked against you. It comes with the territory.

You are right that I don’t work in the arts. I don’t patronize them that much either, simply because I don’t consider them to be particularly worth my while. Others do, and for them I wish all the best (although without the support of the NEA – that $145 million in taxpayer dollars should really be going to better use in my opinion). It just seems silly to whine about somebody “losing their livelihood”, when they were fully aware of the risks inherent to their career choice.

New York Theatre Workshop is an established off-Broadway theater that has been operating since 1982, with a strong reputation, and I wouldn’t refer to it as a “troupe.” I don’t think that the leadership of NYTW would refer to itself as an eco-theater organization either — they were simply blessed with a production manager who had the foresight to embrace more sustainable practices. Remember, NYC has local law 86, which states that ANY new building receiving 50% or more of its funds from the City of New York, must earn a Silver LEED rating from the USGBC.

Obviously, you are not someone who works in the arts, or you would not have referred to the jobs lost at NYTW as “a hobby.” It’s typical of folks like you — the truly shortsighted — to think that artists, and those that earn their living supporting them, are hobbyists. In short, nothing in your comment can be considered “fair.”

People have lost their livelihood through no fault of their own and the shortsighted planning of people who really don’t understand what it is production does

Wouldn’t it also be fair to say these people have lost their livelihood through their own shortsightedness, thinking that a sustainable eco-theater troupe could support them ad infinitum? It’s one thing to have a hobby, quite another to earn a living.

I had read about the situation at Studio Arena and am sorry to hear about the loss of your job — it’s even more telling, considering that you are one of the working professionals featured in my book Careers in Technical Theater. I guess my repeated warnings in that book to young theater artists about the serious financial risks of taking on work in the arts were fully warranted.