Read on Twitter
If you wonder why people don't speak out about industry assistant abuse, you'll understand when you feel like "everyone has to go through this" and also "omg I just got to make coffee in the office kitchen with @SaraBareilles" in the same breath.
and maybe this is my spicy take: actors are not the primary focus, and should not be the primary spokespeople, of assistant abuse. Most of them didn't speak up when they saw it happen. Most of the actors and "celebrities" I met would always have the same reaction "You are STRONG"
It is INCUMBENT upon those of us who endured the abuse and then continued in the industry (I have to say again that I have NEVER been happier than now at @ConcordShows) to look back and say "no, never again. I will not stay silent."
Abuse is tolerated because admin staff in theatre are INVISIBLE, EXPENDABLE, and expected to be GRATEFUL for those opportunities. We do not have a union. We do not have protection.
B*rry We*ssler once walked past my desk and told me he was giving me a raise for all I dealt with in the office and then dropped $1 on my desk and walked away laughing.
They think it's funny. They think it's a G A M E and, honestly, it is because there are 100 tw*nks behind you waiting to endure the same abuse if it means you can wave at the box office staff and walk into the theatre whenever you want.
That's the trap: the proximity to the art. You get to be right up next to it. Yes, I got to see PIPPIN on Broadway whenever I wanted. I got an all-expenses paid trip to Boston for the NEVERLAND try-out. I got to be in the room for the first-ever workshop of WAITRESS.
But what isn't shared is the weeks/months of emotional abuse that goes into those events that, by the time you get there, you've lost all interest. My last night with the Weisslers was the dress rehearsal of NEVERLAND on B'way and I spent it crying in the mezzanine,
worrying that I had made the wrong decision because *look where I was* and then being angry with myself that I couldn't muster the strength to leave. That, and being spit on by the AP because I spent 5 mins in the orchestra answering a Fran question and was not allowed 2 b there.
It is so WILDLY confusing being in that position, and no one can say how they'd act if they hadn't been in the same shoes.
Last thing I'll say about it - it took me 3 weeks to find someone "qualified" to replace me and they quit within 6 hours of the first day of training. The replacement I eventually hired quit within a month. I don't know how many have come after.
