For more than 60 years, hundreds of young artists have spent their summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, hoping to start their careers on the right foot. Frequented by influential vacationers to the Berkshires, the months-long event is considered a rare opportunity for up-and-coming actors to share scenes with Tony Award winners, for emerging directors to learn from industry titans.
Johnson also cited initiatives implemented in Williamstown’s latest season, including a program for emerging theatermakers of color. But for numerous alumni who shared their festival experiences with The Times, these changes — introduced after many arts and culture workplaces came under scrutiny amid the reckonings of 2020 and as the theater industry remained shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic — are too little, too late.
. The internship promised the opportunity to assist in the season’s marquee titles and to spearhead designs on smaller shows.“This institution, with so much reputation and esteem, brings you on board to work with these amazing professionals and surrounds you with people who are all as impassioned as you are, who deeply care about the work,” said former directing assistant Lauren Zeftel.
He said he had been explicitly instructed during orientation to remove any hard hats when climbing in this area, or any stage space at height; according to Bagwell, Seffinger’s supervisor, the festival’s hard hats did not have chin straps and could potentially drop into the house and hurt someone. Seffinger used his own health insurance coverage for the hospital visit, otherwise, he would have had to pay out of pocket with no assistance from the festival.
“Young, unskilled labor are trusted to perform safety-driven tasks, and it’s scary,” said Barbara Samuels, a former associate lighting supervisor who, as an intern, almost fell from a truss structure. “And it gets normalized, because we’re taught that ‘accidents happen,’ as if it’s a single accident and not an entire, unsafe work environment.
Multiple alumni said that the unsafe conditions were exacerbated by sleep deprivation, high stress and minimal time off — all of which they say resulted from the festival’s business model. “WTF simply would not function without relying on young, mostly unpaid, untrained laborers to push their bodies through intense physical stress for an unsafe number of hours,” read the alumni letter to festival leadership.
This is the dirty secret of the not for profit theatre. There is never enough $$. There is never enough staff. There isn’t enough time. And it’s run like a dictatorship. In the 80s I made $160/week, no overtime. An easy week was 60 hours.
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