Prior to the pandemic, designers, like many theatremakers, existed in a fiscally precarious environment. There seemed to be an unspoken assumption among artistic leadership that we had other sources of income. There must have been, because if theatre institutions actually calculated how much designers are paid, and then how many projects designers would need to take on in a year to survive without outside funding, then the current pay scale would appear to be unconscionable.  

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However it’s very likely that institutions aren’t making these calculations at all. There is a certain willful ignorance, or blinkering, when it comes to contracted artists versus institutional staff. If a company is only responsible for a small portion of a person’s yearly income and schedule, they perhaps don’t need to extrapolate what a year, or a lifetime, of those same conditions might mean, what impact the pay and hours have on a designer’s health, relationships, financial stability, and creative resilience. 

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I decided to poke my nose in some colleagues’ business. I communicated with designers in different disciplines, most of whom reside in New York City and work for nonprofit companies. These are folks who work regularly in their field but don’t have a solid monetary cushion from a commercial success. These conversations unspooled ideas about making—both art and money—potential changes in relations between designers and institutions, and, of course, how much we all miss obsessing over ephemeral moments together, in the dark.