The Theatre Industry Must Change and Change Quickly
Mo Gearing
Recently, during an interview for a top London drama school, I found myself posed with the question: ‘Can theatre really change people’s lives?’ And as I sat there nervous in my chair, staring across from an interview panel of esteemed experts with the potential power to shape my future, I took a breath and seized the opportunity to reflect upon all the ways in which theatre has shaped my life for the better. Of course, it didn’t take much reflection before I leant forward in that chair and answered with a resounding ‘yes’.
As a gay kid growing up in suburban Birmingham, in a town that has seen better days, where most people’s parents are working to live and the word ‘Queer’ isn’t even dared whispered in school corridors unless it’s being used as an insult, the theatre was my little safe space. I think to a lot of people theatre is just all jazz hands and people prancing about on a revolving stage in Edwardian costumes, and sometimes it is. However, it is so much more than that and to reduce theatre to just that would be a great shame. Theatre is more than just the people on the stage, it comes in many forms from youth theatre, community-led theatre, to the kind of plays that grace the Olivier stage of the National. Yet at its essence, its purpose is always the same, to tell stories that have the power to change people’s lives, even in the smallest of ways.
Youth Theatre, in particular, is where most young people’s love of performing is first fostered, I know it was mine. From the ages of thirteen to seventeen, I had a safe space to call my own in the form of a youth theatre group. A space where I could go once a week and temporarily forget my problems, become other people for a little while because being myself didn’t yet feel like an option anywhere else. It gave me confidence, problem-solving skills and the ability to meet likeminded individuals who understood me. I look back on my life now and I feel blessed to have been able to have access to such an opportunity.
““The harsh reality is that if you come from an ordinary background, breaking into this industry can sometimes feel like a near to impossible task. “”
However, the sad reality is that most kids from towns like mine are denied such opportunities because of their socio-economic backgrounds. And so, an industry that claims to be predominantly about telling the stories of ‘ordinary people’, suddenly feels exclusionary to those same exact people. The harsh reality is that if you come from an ordinary background, breaking into this industry can sometimes feel like a near to impossible task.
Don’t just take my word for it though, let the statistics talk for themselves. In 2018, a research project by the name of ‘Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries’, found that only 12.4% of the UK workforce in the creative industries are from working-class origins. This is compared to 44% of the UK population as a whole. The same research project also found that the proportion of young cultural workers from upper-middle-class backgrounds more than doubled between 1981 and 2011, from 15% to 33%. Whereas, the proportion from working-class origins dropped by about a third, from 22% to 13% over the same period. Clearly highlighting to us the direct correlation between class and success in creatives fields, such as theatre. So perhaps instead of asking ‘if theatre can change people’s lives?’ we should be asking ‘How can the theatre industry change to help the lives of working-class people?’’
““So perhaps instead of asking ‘if theatre can change people’s lives?’ we should be asking ‘How can the theatre industry change to help the lives of working-class people?’’”
Well, I may not have all the answers but I certainly have a few suggestions. We must first start by making theatre more affordable again, no longer should it be the norm for theatres to charge upwards of twenty- five pounds for a single ticket. A wise person once said that seeing is believing, well how are we ever meant to expect working-class kids to believe they can be successful in the industry if they can’t even afford to buy a ticket to the show? We must lobby the government to get them to invest back into the arts so that school has the proper funding to take kids to the theatre, give them the proper resources needed to learn more about the industry and prove to young working-class children that their dream can become a reality.
All these things are not overnight solutions, but they are an important place to start. It is vital that we, as an industry act and act now to reform theatre in order to level the playfield for working-class writers, actors, directors, etc. We must actively come together as an industry to elevate the work of young working-class creatives and never let their stories go untold again. For in the words of Maya Angelou, ‘’there is no greater fear than that of bearing an untold story within you’’.