Trigger Warning: Mentions sexual violence

As part of our research, we have looked at the impact of various intersecting categories including class, race and gender on the experiences of freelancers. In this blog post, we discuss some of the themes that came up in relation to gender, and some ways to move towards greater gender equality in the industry.

Gender dynamics were mentioned in many of our interviews and Creative Workshops, and three of our focus groups discussed gender dynamics specifically. The focus groups were conducted with 15 freelancers, the majority of whom were female-identifying, and consequently we focus predominantly here on the experiences of women. Participants were asked about their thoughts and experiences relating to gender within the industry, and were left to define what they included within this. During Covid 19, the enforced pause brought time to reflect on numerous aspects of the industry. National and international events, such as the murder of Sarah Everard and the following protests, were catalysts for conversations about women’s safety over the last 2 years, and were often mentioned in our research in relation to gendered inequalities.

Our research aims to document the experiences of freelancers, identifying examples of good practice to be celebrated as well as areas that could be improved. This blog explores some examples and suggestions relating to challenging gendered expectations, budgeting for greater gender equality and creating more equitable institutions. The focus groups concentrated on the thoughts and feelings of members of the industry and how their perceptions of the industry (or of inequalities in the industry) impact on their relationships to work. We also asked them to think about ways their personal experiences might inform change within the industry. These recommendations and experiences come from those discussions.

Challenging gendered expectations in theatre

When discussing gendered expectations, many of those we spoke with reported feeling that the demands on freelancers often related to their gender. For example, the women in the focus groups shared that they felt the need to present more polished work, and felt under pressure to work to a very high standard. One male writer and performer on the other hand felt that his experience was quite different: ‘when I’ve done works in progress, I think I get more slack cut to me probably by institutions and audiences than women would.’ There were also expectations that women would draw upon their personal experiences for writing and performing, where it was felt that men would be trusted with a broader range of topics. Consequently, there is more work to be done in the industry to ensure women feel supported and trusted to take risks and make mistakes, in order to nurture talent and potential regardless of gender.

A recurring topic that came up with many of the freelancers we’ve spoken with has been the difficulty of saying no to work and raising concerns about working conditions due to ongoing precarity. In the gender focus groups, the gendered dimensions of this were discussed. There was a sense that there was a difficulty in saying no to or calling out inappropriate behaviour that women had often faced, including instances of harassment, grooming and assault. These were also highlighted within the #MeToo movement as happening throughout the theatre industry. Guidelines of appropriate behaviour were suggested as standard practice for production companies and institutions to try to overcome this. Clear guidelines as part of contractual agreements for staff and freelancers around behaviour, communication and physical contact could ensure that everyone knew the expectations upon them, remove ambiguity and give those in precarious positions more power to say no and challenge misconduct. 

Gendered expectations also brought pressure on individuals in terms of their appearance. Ageism, sizeism, and a greater focus on looks than talent and skills, were all seen to have a particular impact on women within the industry and for performers in particular. While it is important to acknowledge that these things also impact men, a lack of roles for older women, casting calls for ‘ pretty girls’ or for a woman with a ’24 inch waist’ were problematic examples that were reported by freelancers within the focus groups. One participant shared, “I think having more like body diversity on stage would be excellent, in terms of equality for everyone. But I think, particularly, women are under a lot of aesthetic demands.” To overcome such pressures, casting needs to be more inclusive and less focused on aesthetics. Greater diversity in casting could also have a broader range of beneficial outcomes and there are a number of resources, like the Theatre Casting Toolkit from Tonic, Equity and SOLT which can support these changes. 

Freelancers we spoke with also reported that they often encountered negative perceptions of parents and carers within the industry. Women continue to shoulder a larger burden of childcare, as highlighted throughout the pandemic. Frequently, the women we spoke with in our interviews and focus groups had delayed having children or felt unable to do so due to the feared impact that it would have on their careers. Covid-19 was seen to open up the conversation around caring responsibilities. Home working, with meetings and auditions via Zoom, meant that more of the freelancers lives were visible. One actor we spoke with shared: “it’s allowed people to realise that you’re not just a person walking into a room who’s just an actor, but you’ve got so much more going on in your life.” Continuing to open up conversations surrounding caring responsibilities could help to mitigate the pressures that were felt by women in particular to avoid or hide additional responsibilities. Our participants highlighted the need to encourage more flexibility where possible in approaches to working that could improve access within the industry according to gender, but also, for instance, for disabled artists.

Budgeting for greater gender equality

Often, greater inclusion needs investment. In our conversations about gender, a number of areas were highlighted as potential ways to bring improvements for gender equality. Safety and security of all within theatre spaces should be a responsibility that is always taken seriously. Relatively recently we have seen the inclusion of intimacy coordinators within more rehearsal rooms, helping to work towards safer practices. Intimacy coordinators were praised by those we spoke with for their beneficial impact on both the quality of productions and providing a duty of care for those within them. Other (still fairly infrequent) examples of good practice included the provision of a therapist who worked with the actors, writers and directors throughout the rehearsal process when working on emotionally challenging themes. These kinds of support are beneficial for everyone on sets, but can particularly help to mitigate insecurities that are often experienced according to gender and the impacts of past trauma such as sexual assault (1 in 5 women have experienced rape or sexual assault as adults).

Beyond theatre spaces, another suggestion surrounded the need for greater investment to ensure that freelancers and staff felt secure on journeys to and from theatre spaces. One performer and director shared that she often felt unsafe when needing to travel from the theatre late at night. She suggested, ‘for me there would always be money in budgets for safe journeying to and from whatever you’re doing. Whether that’s an accessibility thing, or a safety thing.’ She had occasionally been offered this provision but in a more informal way, ‘this is in the pot if you need it. Ask us about it and it’s there for you’, but she recommended having it more formally built in to funding applications and pots. In light of high profile events, such as the murder of Sarah Everard, violence against women within public spaces gained renewed attention and such a pot of funding would recognise gendered insecurities and the additional burdens, including financial costs, that these can bring for women.

Additionally, there was praise for performances and institutions that integrated childcare for employees and freelancers. As mentioned above, these responsibilities are often disproportionately shouldered by women and provisions of childcare during meetings and rehearsals could overcome many of the challenges highlighted in relation to the difficulties faced by parents and carers. Such provision is currently extremely limited, but organisations that integrate this as a standard were praised as helping to mitigate an issue that can exacerbate gendered inequalities. 

Creating more equitable institutions

Many of our participants reiterated calls within the industry for greater diversity not only on stage but at all levels of theatre institutions and structures, including behind the scenes and on the boards. 

Our participants were attentive not only to gender, but to broader problems of representation and access, including wholesale change rather than tokenism. One playwright based in Scotland said that we need to go further than a small number of predominantly white, middle class women in positions of power, stating, ‘I think we still need to keep fighting for more, as women. And particularly to get women of more diverse backgrounds into, into the arts.’ Women are often underrepresented in positions of power and certain roles within the industry, but we need to also be attentive to intersecting categories including class, race and disability.

The pandemic has been celebrated for opening conversations about the industry and ways to change and improve it. The collective enforced pause gave freelancers breathing space to reflect on numerous problems within the industry. The theatre industry is under intense pressure in terms of funding as we continue to navigate the impacts of Covid-19. However, as we reopen, the conversations that have opened up over the past two years can feed into more equitable relations within the industry. Seeing the kinds of costs suggested above as integral to plans for production budgets could help to mitigate some of the barriers that are often experienced along gendered lines, and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable industry.

At this point in the pandemic, there is a fear that the conversations over the last 2 years will have been in vain, failing to make changes as the industry treads water during an undoubtably challenging time. Some of the suggestions here are relatively simple to implement, but many are more challenging, requiring long-term commitment and continued evaluation, reflection and a fundamental change in the way we understand, and what we prioritise, within the industry. Our conversations brought so many problems to light, but also suggestions from freelancers for positive change. We hope that these will continue some of those important conversations and lead to concrete commitments that will make the industry more equitable.

What changes would you make to the industry to make it more inclusive and equitable? Let us know your thoughts.

Across the six micro commission sites, groups of freelancers responded to various prompts, drawing on themes that had come through strongly in our previous research, including the interviews and focus groups. Two of these prompts were Identity and Giving Voice, explored by groups in Plymouth and Newcastle upon Tyne. As researchers, we were interested in the creative process and we asked each group to respond to the prompts within the context of their experiences over the pandemic, but we left the brief broad in order to allow it to be taken in different directions. The results brought huge variety to the micro commissions, and reflected the diverse skills and approaches from our brilliant participants.

One Giving Voice group spent time sharing their own personal experiences and reflections, dedicating time to free writing to give voice to everyone in the group. In particular, this group reflected on the gendered imbalances and particular challenges women can face in making their voices heard. They worked with text and monologues, allowing space for everyone to speak and share on their own terms and in a way that they felt comfortable with. They created a space where it felt safe to speak honestly, with Giving Voice not only being the prompt for discussion, but also a central part of their process.

While there were a number of positive aspects to Giving Voice, there was also reflection on how voice is given and the potential for voices to drown each other out for instance, when using social media. During the pandemic as there was a reliance on technology for communication, some voices spoke loudly while others faded. The second group playfully explored the concepts of voices speaking together and over one another.

They also gave voice to some of the challenges they felt as freelancers, including the ongoing need to negotiate working conditions and pay, and the need to adapt and change over the pandemic. Certain disciplines and specialisms were particularly difficult to shift online, such as clowning and physical theatre. Despite no verbal communication, a scene where Aron used mime and movement allowed his voice to shine. As one of the audience members reflected “obviously you had no voice, but it was your clearest voice throughout the whole thing. It was your instrument, what you were comfortable with. You had no sound, no voice in that respect, yet you were at your most comfortable and your voice was the clearest when you weren’t saying anything at all.”

Giving Voice also connected closely to the theme of Identity. As one freelancer said, ‘it was amazing to get back to that sense of identity as a maker. It made me think about the power of my voice.’ The groups working on the theme of Identity again worked in different ways, bringing their own skills and approaches to the rooms.

There was a strong feeling that the identity of creatives had been devalued during the pandemic, as they often felt they were not being heard. The government campaign to Rethink, Reskill, Reboot, for example, came up frequently in our research. One group looking at Identity started with the pose of the original image used within the campaign, of two dancers back to back. Working with improvised dialogue, Jaime and Sam explored feelings of working together with, as well as the enforced separation from, other creatives. The campaign was also a route to engage with a lack of understanding of the importance of the arts and cultural sectors. In improvisation, one participant exclaimed “Useful, useful, useful!” They felt a pressure to ‘do something useful’, which of course at the same time insinuated that theatre and the cultural sectors are not useful. Reflecting on this together and processing it creatively allowed some reclamation of the value of that identity.

The second Identity group worked with spoken word, instruments, movement and silks. They mapped out their journeys from the pandemic considering what it meant to be a creative, and the pressure they had felt to keep being creative. As a line from Imogen’s poem states, “But still the weight of creative expectation hangs heavy as lead. Don’t treat the pandemic as a residency, they said.” Moving toward reopening, the group reclaimed their creative identity, and through the process and working together they also realised that it was not only their individual identities that had significance, but also their group identity as creatives. Through their collaboration and discussions they found that this shared identity brought strength and optimism.

Being back in the room with other creative freelancers and making work became a celebration of that collective identity, and gave voice and space to process the shared experiences of the pandemic.

Our Creative Micro Commissions have been taking place across the UK during October and November.

Being back in person and working creatively has been exhilarating, not just for our participants we are working with, but also the research team working on Freelancers in the Dark. It was important to the team that we engaged creatively with freelancers in addition to our other methods (including interviews, focus groups and surveys), and we’re thrilled to have been working on micro commissions around the UK as a result.

The micro commissions have been taking place in 6 locations across the UK (London, Plymouth, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Newcastle), and involve a 3-hour virtual workshop and two days in person. At the end of the second day the participants have shared scratch performances of what they have been working on over the two days.

Across the locations we have worked with a range of creators including writers, directors, theatre makers and actors, from those relatively new to the industry to those with decades of experiences within it. There have been a mix of specialists from physical theatre, visual arts and comedy, all bringing their own perspectives, skills and approaches to the commissions. In groups of 4 the participants have been asked to respond to one of six themes:

• Advocacy
• Transformation
• Giving Voice
• Identity
• Empowerment
• Collaboration

These prompts are all significant themes that have emerged throughout our research. They are deliberately broad, allowing the freelancers we are working with to respond with autonomy and imagination. As a result the focus and design of each group has differed, as the freelancers we have worked with have brought together their own artistic styles and processes. Additionally, there has been lots of space for exploration of the personal experiences of the pandemic and reflections on the industry more broadly, together with collective experiences and frustrations from the past 18 months.

Creative approaches to these themes have included the creation of musical numbers including Sea Shanties, physical theatre, monologues, sketches and more. In particular, participants have commented that the opportunity to create art from the experiences of, and reflections on, the last 18 months has been an invigorating and cathartic process.

Our last groups are taking place in the next few weeks, with the last one in Newcastle in early November.

We can’t wait to share more about these, watch out for further blog posts coming soon!

How did theatre freelancers’ locations affect their experiences of the pandemic? How might the geography of theatre-making in the UK—by which we mean the physical location, distribution, and activity across the four nations—have been changed by events since March 2020? In order to address these questions, we have turned to our 397 survey respondents. Analyzing these responses by postcode and nation, as well as considering the written reflections on location, has given us some intriguing initial insights.   

Existing research showed theatre activity in the UK to be clustered around core cities, making commuting and travelling for work a pre-COVID norm.  87.9% of our survey respondents were ‘Often’ or ‘Sometimes’ travelling across the UK for work purposes, while 63.4% undertook European travel, before March 2020. This demonstrates that our respondents were highly mobile before COVID-19 struck. The removal of the ability to travel for work created a major problem with immediate consequences.  

This mobility was quickly replaced by the widespread use of digital meeting platforms. For those whose work is often located in London (around which theatre-making is clustered) but who do not live there, our survey shows this new normal to be roundly considered a net benefit. The development serves the overwhelming majority of our respondents who travelled for work, with particular benefits for those with caring responsibilities or anyone for whom travelling is a burden and a barrier. We are clearly seeing a hope and expectation that this will continue into the future, evidencing a potential long-term change in the everyday geographies of theatre-making.  

This potential redistribution of the work of making theatre has knock-on effects for the traditional core cities of the sector. Our survey shows an emerging emotional disinvestment in the UK capital. Respondents living in London (including Greater London) were more likely to indicate feeling pessimistic about their future careers in theatre compared to those living elsewhere. Some respondents also reported that the struggles of living in London—such as high living expenses—became more pronounced as the work opportunities diminished. As the benefits of living in the capital were removed, including mobility, social, and cultural life, and it became increasingly apparent that Zoom-working was both feasible and practical, personal cost-benefit analyses of London living were re-negotiated. 

At the same time, our survey data echoes a wider trend of ‘localism’ in response to the pandemic. Respondents across the UK were busy engaging in their immediate local communities, both in and beyond their theatre work. Many were engaged in countless local mutual aid groups and other, less organised, acts of community care. 43.9% of respondents reported feeling an increased sense of belonging to their local communities; conversely, 55.1% felt a decreased sense of belonging to the UK as a whole. This increased localism is shared by arts and culture audiences. It remains to be seen how long-term and transformational this localism proves. 

On a larger scale, our survey data shows differing experiences across the four nations of the UK. Those living in England reported lower levels of feeling supported by their previous employers. England-based respondents reported feeling ‘Very’ or ‘Quite’ unsupported by their previous employed at an almost 10% higher frequency than any other nation. Respondents in Wales reported the lowest levels of feeling unsupported, at 47.4%. We are undertaking closer study in order to understand the different strategies from employers that were playing out in different national contexts, and which have produced these results.  

To understand the impact of urban or rural locations on theatre freelancer’s pandemic experiences, respondents were categorised into ‘urban’ or ‘rural’ using the 2011 Census urban-rural classification, based on the first half of postcodes. However, this produced no significant findings, suggesting that the location of respondents relative to urban centres in general was having negligible impact on their experiences. This emphasises that it is specific urban locations—i.e., London and other core cities—that are exerting the biggest influence on theatre freelancers, as well as their national context.  

This analysis of our survey highlights the shifting geographies, both emotional and practical, of theatre freelancers over the course of the pandemic. While living in London was a driver of pessimism, respondents across the UK were identifying more closely with their local area and community. Zoom meetings established a new distribution of working lives which looks set to remain. Taken together, these findings suggest that the pandemic may have catalysed a long-term shift in UK theatre-making towards decentralisation. As we continue to amalgamate our survey data with our qualitative data, we will continue to explore this phenomenon.  

This blog is written by Jacob Rayner Blair and is based on research completed as part of a placement on the project Freelancers in the Dark, facilitated by Manchester Metropolitan University.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a rise in British news reports concerning freelance theatre workers. Since 1^st January 2020 there have been at least sixty-five newspaper articles mentioning theatre freelancers. In the nineteen years prior to this, there were just six—three of them reporting on the same story (the 2004 crisis at the centenary of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre). In other words, in the last year and a half there has been over ten times the amount of coverage of freelancers than there was in the nineteen years preceding the pandemic.

To understand what it is exactly that the media has been reporting, I collected a sample of fifty reports from broadcast media and newspaper articles mentioning theatre freelancers during the pandemic. All reports recognised the problems that freelancers faced when theatres were forced to shut their doors, and thirty-four out of the fifty reports used emotive language regarding this. Words such as ‘struggling’, ‘vulnerable’ and ‘plight’ were used frequently. The intention of the majority of these articles seemed to be to raise awareness of how the pandemic has made the profession even less financially reliable than before.

There was an increase in articles relating to theatre freelancers after the Culture Recovery Fund was announced on the 5^th July 2020. Many of them reported that most theatre freelancers were not receiving any of the government’s funding. Similar phrases often cropped up across the press and broadcast media, for example fourteen of the fifty reports sampled used some variation of the phrase ‘fallen through the gaps’ when reporting on freelancers not benefiting from the government’s funding. One article quoted Prasanna Puwanarajah who took it even further stating that ‘it’s no longer possible to call them cracks—they really are chasms’, stressing the gravity of the situation.

The freelance theatre workforce was mainly represented in the sample by artistic directors, many of whom had gone through a range of careers including sound designing and acting. However, it was only when a famous director or actor was interviewed on theatre freelancers that there was a surge in reports on the subject. For example, after Sam Mendes was interviewed on his encouragement to donate to the Theatre Artists Fund, there was a large spike in reports concerning theatre freelancers. Similarly when Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Maggie Smith joined a Zoom show in aid of UK theatre workers, theatre freelancers became the talking point in many news reports for a short while, suggesting that the topic only becomes relevant when celebrities are talking about it. If the only voices given full media attention are from actors and directors, the fear is that other freelancers such as technicians, designers and stagehands will be forgotten. Work needs to be done to remind the public of the diversity of theatre’s workforce.

When reporting on freelance theatre workers’ unstable financial position, most of the articles acknowledged that the precariousness of the profession was not a new problem, and that it has been a reality for theatre workers long before the pandemic. Despite this, only since the start of the pandemic has it been a concern of the mainstream media, and this point was highlighted in a few of the articles. One report stated that ‘the COVID-19 crisis has exposed the precarious situation for the vast number of freelancers working in the theatre industry’. Whilst theatre workers and many theatregoers have been aware of this instability in the profession for a long time, the recent media attention it has been receiving will no doubt spread awareness, which is a necessity if the industry is to be kept afloat. Hopefully, this recognition of freelance theatre work continues and theatre freelancers get the support they need, both during and after the pandemic.

Picture credit: Annie Spratt via Unsplash.

Since the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 we have witnessed unprecedented upheavals in our social and cultural lives. Policy has been announced and changed. Governments have U-turned. Lockdowns have been imposed and lifted. We have all tried to keep up with changing social restrictions. It’s been difficult to keep track of events.

Since going dark in March 2020 theatres have struggled through these upheavals. Theatres and theatre freelancers have had to navigate government and industry support packages while living through the emotional reality of a pandemic. At the same time, many have taken their theatre work online, or organised theatre freelancer advocacy and support groups across the UK. Presently, as some theatres begin to reopen, the impacts of the pandemic on the sector are coming to bear.

As our research looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the economic, social and cultural lives of theatre freelancers we are interested in how these effects have changed over time. We also recognised that time, in a pandemic, moves in a strange way and it can be hard to recall the order in which things happened. We needed a tool to help us chart the changes.

To this end, we have created an interactive timeline mapping out over 100 key dates in the pandemic, including key policy and government announcements that have impacted on theatres, and the publication of key pieces of research related to theatre freelancers. Recognising that each nation of the UK has been on differing timelines, we have organised the timeline under these national headings.

We believe that mapping out the events since March 2020 should be a collaborative and on-going effort, taking into account many different viewpoints. We are therefore inviting you to contribute to the timeline. If you work in or engage with the theatre sector, please use this form to answer the question: What have been your key dates and events since March 2020?

Our idea is to create a tool that not only supports our research but also helps with the theatre industry’s collective memory of the pandemic and its impacts. It is both an aide memoir and a resource that allows us all to look back over the course of events and recognise the key junctures in the pandemic. What’s more, it is perhaps haunted by alternative futures and paths not taken.

Through crowdsourcing key dates, as well as the dates and events that our research has shown us to be important, we hope to tell some of the story of the UK theatre sector during COVID-19. Rather than a definitive history, we hope that this timeline becomes a live and evolving reflection on an ongoing crisis.

We are delighted today to be publishing our first report, The Future from Here: Theatre Freelancers and Planning for the Future During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The report details the emerging findings from our survey of theatre freelancers which ran from November 2020 until March 2021, and we would like to say a huge “thank you” to those who took part. We heard from 397 theatre freelancers, across all career stages and a variety of specialisms. We are only at the beginning of our analysis, and will continue to publish our emerging findings as we dig deeper into this data set, as well as integrate it with the data we are gathering through interviews and focus groups.

Our research project is focussed on the medium and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the field of theatre freelancers, and by extension the UK theatre sector as a whole. Our survey echoed this interest, asking theatre freelancers to tell us about their plans for the future and how they have evolved since March 2020. This generated a wealth of fascinating reflections in free-text answers which made clear that theatre freelancers’ future planning was being influenced by lived experiences in their entangled professional and personal lives. Beyond the economic (dis)incentives facing theatre freelancers, we became interested in other experiences—political, cultural and emotional—that appeared to be impacting how theatre freelancers are planning for their future careers. For this reason, we placed theatre freelancer’s hopes and fears for the future at the centre of our analysis, and we will take up these themes in future publications. We also offer early recommendations for policy and practice with a view to limit the flow of freelancers leaving the industry, taking their vital skills, perspectives and creativity with them.

Our report speaks to the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre’s (PEC) fortnight of research and policy on creative freelancers, “One Size Can’t Fit All.” PEC’s series is highlighting the unique struggles faced by freelancers across the creative industries, whose existing precarity has often been compounded by the gaps in government and industry support packages. As Julieta Cuneo writes in the opening blog:

“It is vitally important that the government provides targeted support for freelancers. Not only for when venues in the UK do finally reopen over the next few months—as per the Prime Minister’s recently introduced roadmap out of lockdown—but for the long-term health of the creative sector.”

Head over to their website for our blog which summarises key findings and recommendations of our report. Also be sure to check out the other contributions, including a PEC commissioned report Building Back Better? Creative Freelancers and Learning from the Covid-19 Experience, which together offer an excellent resource for understanding how the pandemic has reverberated across different fields of cultural freelancers.

The next steps in our analysis will include integrating the data from across our different methods. This will allow us to get close to the lived experiences and emotional realities of theatre freelancers, while positioning them in their wider professional field. We are also prioritising analysing inequalities and their intersections in order to illuminate further the differential impacts that the pandemic is having across sections of the freelance workforce. Follow us on social media or sign up to our monthly mailing list to hear about our future publications. You can find the report in two formats (PDF and online) here.

Launching today is our survey for Theatre Organisations and Venues. An important part of the Freelancers in the Dark project is to understand how freelancers and the role they play in the theatre sector are perceived. We’re also keen to understand how different kinds of support and relationships are emerging or being sustained between theatre freelancers and organisations/venues during the lockdowns and interruptions created by COVID19. To see more about the whole project and all the different elements, please click here.

We invite theatre organisations and venues of all shapes and sizes, commercial and non-profit, who produce and/or present theatre, and deliver theatre projects (youth and community theatre, etc). We are keen to also hear from multi-artform organisations who include theatre as part of their programme. Please also share this with organisations and venues as widely as possible – the wider and more diverse range we capture, the better picture we will form.

The survey is open until 19 March 2021 and takes about 10 – 15 minutes to complete. We are asking a couple of questions about staffing figures and it may be useful to have these to hand before you start. To complete the survey, please click here. There is an audio play button to assist with survey completion if you require it. If you would like assistance completing this survey, please contact us through the project email or using the contact form on this site. See here.

The data we gather from this survey is anonymous and will be added to the other information we gather from all the different parts of the project. You can see all of our strands of data collection on the ‘Take Part‘ page.

We are pleased to be launching our survey, an important tool with which to understand the effect of the COVID19 pandemic on freelance theatre workers across the UK. We hope to reach workers in a variety of roles, across all stages of their careers, and to represent the full diversity of people and skills that make up this workforce.

Our survey of freelancers is particularly interested in the experience of being a theatre freelancer in the UK since March 2020. The project as a whole is concerned with the social, cultural and economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic, and the survey addresses all of these issues. Through it, we hope to build a holistic understanding of how these issues intersect, and to be able to back up our other research strands with quantitative data.

This survey, aimed at people who consider themselves theatre freelancers, is only one aspect of our data collection. We have also been running interviews and will continue with a suite of qualitative methods throughout 2021. Follow us on Twitter to hear more about these. We are also launching a survey aimed at employing organisations to examine the support they have been providing freelancers. You can see all of our strands of data collection on the ‘Take Part‘ page.

Taken together, all of our data will not only help document the collective strategies of freelancers during and in the immediate aftermath of COVID19, but also help the sector develop a plan to address the challenges facing freelancers in 2021. We will be publishing reports, articles and holding events to facilitate communication with support networks across the UK, and increase resilience in the sector. Every participant in our research is a vital part of making this as impactful as possible.

The survey takes around 20 minutes to complete, and consists of both tick-box and free text questions. It is open until March 19th, 2021. All information on consent and the use of data can be found on the frontpage of the survey, or here. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Thank you very much for considering completing this survey. Please do share it with your networks; the more people we hear from, the more powerful our work will become.

COVID-19 has been devastating for many industries including the performing arts. The closures of theatres and outlawing of public gatherings have proven financially devastating to the theatre industry across the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. The pandemic has sparked a wide range of industry-led strategies designed to alleviate financial consequences and improve audience capture amidst social distancing. COVID-19 has affected all levels of the sector but poses an existential threat to freelancers—Independent Arts Workers (IAWs)—who make up 70% of the industry workforce in the UK. The crisis has put a spotlight on the vulnerable working conditions, economic sustainability, diversity of the workforce, mental wellbeing, and community support networks for freelancers. The pandemic has highlighted how freelance theatre workers are often overlooked, but it is their very precarity that makes them pioneers of adaptability responsible for key innovation within the sector. They are essential to the future resilience and regrowth of the theatre in the aftermath of COVID-19.  

The UKRI ESRC funded study, Freelancers in the Dark provides a grassroots investigation of the economic, cultural, and social impact of COVID-19 on UK theatre freelancers from across the country. Our 2020-2021 study explores in real-time the wide-ranging challenges and creative solutions being made, discussed, and interrogated by freelance theatre workers and the institutions, networks, and arts organisations who support them. We are investigating connections between the financial consequences of COVID-19 and creative strategies for industry survival including social support networks, communication initiatives between arts venues and freelance theatre workers, and the development of mixed-media work in the wake of the pandemic. Our study scrutinizes the economic, cultural, and social impact of COVID-19 on freelance theatre workers and the organisations that serve them with the aim of informing strategies for sector recovery.