Episode 56: Return to the Stage

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Return to the Stage Study Findings

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Understanding what's actually going on in people's heads, not just how much they've lost, but what they aspire to, how they're coping, how they're feeling now, what they think they might want going forward. — Meg Friedman

In this episode our featured voices are Meg Friedman a senior consultant at AMS planning and research and David McGraw the Program Coordinator for Arts Administration at Elon University and we’re discussing “Return to the Stage – A Performing Arts Workforce Study”. After going through your return to the stage studies, I really wanted to host you on the show so that you could share with the audience, what they want impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is having on our performing arts workforce, your findings, insights, and recommendations.

Meg Friedman

Meg has been working in the arts, culture, and entertainment industry for over 20 years. A consultant with progressive responsibility at AMS Planning & Research since 2016, Meg spent the first act of her career as a freelance stage manager, working with theaters and other arts organizations. At AMS, Meg plans and conducts research to support client planning and decision-making. This includes interviews with industry leaders, secondary research using public and proprietary data, and literature reviews focused on issues in the arts and adjacent fields. She is a member of AMS's internal Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee. Meg works with organizations in the not-for-profit and public sector ranging in size from $200K-over $60M, supporting strategic planning and facility feasibility projects. In addition to her work for AMS, Meg is a principal researcher behind RETURN TO THE STAGE, a snapshot of the performing arts workforce in COVID times. For more information about AMS visit their website www.ams-online.com and Meg please check out her LinkedIn profile and her research on theater volunteerism

David McGraw

David serves as the Program Coordinator for Elon University’s Arts Administration major, an undergraduate program with 80 students. He also has managed professional performing arts projects across the country for several decades. He recently worked with the South African State Theatre on a Fulbright Specialist Grant to plan a tour of the new show Freedom: The Musical in the United States. He has published The SM Kit blog for Stage Directions Magazine and produced the training film Standby Cue 101: An Introduction to Calling Live Performances. In 2019, he was elected to the role of Director-at-Large for the national Stage Managers’ Association. Current research: US Stage Manager Survey (2006-2019), South African Creative Industries Technical Staff Survey (2019), SM2030 Project (2020-2021), Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (2021), and RETURN TO THE STAGE (2020-2021). You can find out more about David’s work at Elon University https://www.elonaad.com and https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/arts-and-sciences/performing-arts/ and more about David http://www.davidjmcgraw.com

RETURN TO THE STAGE

RETURN TO THE STAGE is a longitudinal study of performing arts workers in the United States, designed to understand COVID-19 related impacts and to begin documenting a broad future vision for the field.

Why are you doing this?
The workforce is the lifeblood of the performing arts sector. Without the talent and effort of thousands - paid and unpaid - the brilliance of live performance would not be able to happen. Performing arts workers are also uniquely resilient and creative, accustomed to working as a team on tight deadlines, often in rapidly changing conditions. This survey will help us understand how the performing arts workforce is experiencing the effects of COVID-19 related restrictions, what kinds of coping strategies the workforce is using, and what your hopes are for the performing arts field in the months and years to come.
This is important because, even as the number of jobs changes in response to sudden losses in revenue, understanding the other side of the equation is just as important: the people side. Lost jobs does NOT equate to lost talent, and we want to hear from the full array of talented people so a clear(er) picture can be formed of the performing arts sector’s future.

Who should take it?
Everyone who works or volunteers in the performing arts: Performers and managers, directors and choreographers, front-of-house, house managers, ushers and box office teams, writers, technical and design, development and marketing, facility operators, vendors, and everyone else who makes the work happen. Your input is anonymous, and individual data will never be shared.

To read the first wave July 2020 of the Return to the Stage Survey Results click here

To read the second wave January 2021 of the Return to the Stage Survey Results click here

Participate in the Survey

If you would like to receive reports and updates, please join the mailing list to participate in the third wave of the survey in July 2021

Please contact David or Meg via email at returntothestage@gmail.com

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“Our house is burned down, or our house was destroyed in a natural disaster. And so now we have to rebuild, but this means that we don’t just do an ad-on or we don’t do some cosmetic. We actually can go back to that foundation. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at the foundations of how the arts functioning in the United States, that we’re not this luxury.”

— David McGraw,Program Coordinator for Arts Administration at Elon University

Our Sponsorship

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