Looking at the activism that led to pay transparency on Playbill and BroadwayWorld's job postings

Have you scrolled through the job postings on Playbill lately? How about BroadwayWorld? If you have, you’ve probably noticed that something is different.

Along with the familiar inclusion of job title, location, and description, you may have seen that there are some new numbers in the mix. That’s right! Thanks to the activism and hard work of the groups On Our Team and Costume Professionals for Wage Equity, Playbill and BroadwayWorld now require that anyone posting a job must include salary in their announcement.

Sitting down on Zoom with representatives from both organizations, I was able to learn more about the importance of pay transparency and about their advocacy work as they continue to fight for pay equity in the arts.

Jeanette Aultz is a draper and teaches at Montclair State University, mentoring students in tech and design. She also works in various technical positions in regional theatre, mainly based in New Jersey.

Elsa Hitner is a costume designer who works primarily in theatre, though she has done work for commercials as well. She is also a Director of Development for a theatre company, working to create a bridge between administration and design.

Jessa-Raye Court is primarily a costume designer but does some wardrobe work as well. She also recently got her real estate license in order to continue working through COVID.

These three theatre professionals are both artistic leaders and activists within these two groups. Starting with On Our Team, this group is based in Chicago and was created in January of 2020 by four costume designers.

“It’s really coming out of our individual activism work trying to come together, and trying to get more ally support from other designers,” said Elsa. “And then also being supportive of props designers, or you know, composers and other artists who are dealing with a lot of the same pay equity issues that costume designers are.”

We also have Costume Professionals for Wage Equity, a group that formed in May 2019.

“We were watching all these terrible job postings show up in one of the professional costume groups on Facebook and we had just had enough,” added Jeanette. They went on to create a new Facebook group to address these issues. “Here we were trying to bring that collective passion to make our industry better and to get respect for the hidden labor that happens in the backstage areas.”

With letter writing, social media presence, and persistence, these two groups of theatre professionals have completed successful campaigns since their inception, all geared towards the eventual goal of pay equity in the arts.

One strength of these two groups is their ability to collaborate both with each other and with other organizations to work towards change. In fact, there are those who are members of both groups and have helped bridge the gap between the two.

“Totally sideswiped by the pandemic, we had big plans in the spring and none of it happened. This winter it really felt like the right time to come together and see if a collaborative effort could be even more powerful than individual organization,” explained Elsa. “And you know, Playbill was kind of the big outlier of not requiring pay rates when so many now do. On Our Team is really interested in coalition building and supporting other groups. There are so many groups working on labor issues in theatre and racism in theatre and accessibility in theatre and all of these things… it’s what we’re interested in too.”

“The collaboration has been wonderful. We have been talking to more and more groups and it’s been this weird... I don’t want to say blessing, but a good thing that came out of the pandemic,” continued Jeanette. “It was time for theatre workers to take a breath. There’s this collective idea that when we come back, we want to come back to an industry that’s stronger and more supportive of its workers, including actors, including dancers, including technicians, and designers, and everyone.”

In order to begin their campaigns with Playbill and BroadwayWorld, they sent letters, asking the companies to change their policy. BroadwayWorld’s response was practically immediate.

“They got the email, and we said you know, here’s why you should change your policy. Please do it. And they made the policy change within 20 minutes of receiving the email,” said Elsa.

Their correspondence with Playbill took some more work.

“They weren’t being dismissive of us verbally, they just weren’t participating in the conversation we were trying to have,” Jessa explained. “They were literally not responding. They came to us at some point in our campaign and said, ‘We’re planning on doing that,’ and we said ‘Yeah but when?’”

“But even Playbill was very positive,” continued Elsa. “It took them a while to make the change but they were very gracious.”

Inspired by the labor activism work done by musicians at the MET, On Our Team and Stage Professionals for Wage Equity took to social media, commenting on many of Playbill’s Facebook and Instagram posts in order to remind them of the demand for pay transparency.

So why is pay transparency important? And how does it lead to pay equity?

“There’s a lot of trust that comes with pay transparency. It’s been studied and proven that employees like their employers better if they trust their employer,” Elsa elaborated. “You can’t have pay equity without transparency. There’s no accountability.”

“And companies can’t hide behind it anymore,” continued Jeanette. “I already know my cost of  living and I already know what wage I’m looking for, so I won’t waste my time or my employer’s time with an interview process only to find out it’s not even close to what I need.”

“And ultimately it’s money for them,” added Jessa. “I’ve wasted so much of other people’s time by interviewing. I think they are conditioned in some way to think that they’re going to save money by tricking someone who is overqualified into taking that role, when in reality we’re just interviewing to find out how much money it is only to say, ‘thank you very much, goodbye.’ It saves them time and money too.”

In an industry where money is always an issue, companies often ask for the highest quality of work at the lowest rate of pay. And consistently, theatre professionals are expected to go above and beyond by working countless hours, well over the standard 40-hour workweek. We have been conditioned into believing that this way of life is both the norm and an acceptable way to work.

That not only leads to the mistreatment of arts employees, but also to a lack of equity in the artistic workforce. When only those with wealth can afford to take jobs, it is next to impossible for those with less financial privilege to find work in the industry. This affects the diversity of any given company and creates a vacuum in which only certain people are able to do this work for a living.

“I think the biggest point that I find as a selling point is that a well-paid employee is a more effective employee,” Jessa said. “Yeah okay, your bottom line might work out on paper, but the actual product? You’re going to get a better show if you have well-paid people.”

These victories have been a game-changer for theatre professionals looking for work, and they have opened many of our eyes to the disconnect between the level of work expected and ridiculously low salaries offered. But what comes next for On Our Team and Costume Professionals for Wage Equity?

“Well I think, we’re looking at shifting the culture of theatre and changing the conversation and sometimes that’s one place at a time,” said Jeanette. “We have this moment to have a more inclusive, a more diverse, a more accessible industry, and it’s not going to be easy. If we have to rewrite everything anyway, let’s do it. Who here has gone to work with a fever? You can’t do that anymore. And that starts to beget all sorts of other things that you want to talk about. If we’re rewriting all the rules anyway, then let’s rewrite the rules.”

“It’s really about building consensus,” added Elsa. “So one of the things that we’re working on in Chicago is trying to get more companies to have equity policies like something transparent on their website about pay equity. And often it’s kind of scary, so we’re giving companies the tools to do it and building the consensus to motivate them properly.”

On Our Team and Costume Professionals for Wage Equity have also continued collaborating since the news of their recent successes. Their next goal? Demanding that Backstage requires pay transparency as well.

If you’re interested in getting involved and supporting the activism work that these theatre professionals have begun, both On Our Team and Costume Professionals for Wage Equity have websites.

“If you don’t see what you do represented, there’s always a Facebook group. And if you still don’t find it, perhaps you can start your own group and we can work together to start these campaigns,” Jessa encouraged. “For so long we were told not to talk about it, and now the floodgates are open so there’s no going back.”