Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1987 - 74

on-campus participation in production, where required, supports programs valuable to the institution and the broader
community. Regardless of how it is credited for evaluation,
such activity should be fairly compensated, through release
from other duties or through appropriate supplements to
salaries.
PARTICIPATION IN FACULTY AFFAIRS
Full participation in faculty aHairs is essential to growth and
advancement as a professor. Participation on faculty committees of the institution is typically regarded as institutional
service and is a factor in faculty evaluations. Such participation
plays a major role in establishing credibility with faculty colleagues outside the institution. At many institutions promotion to upper ranks, particularly administrative positions, is
unlikely for those without significant committee experience.
Release from involvement in the business of the broader
faculty is not appropriate compensation for required production
activity. Further, it should be understood that where it is necessary, studio schedules must be adjusted to accommodate full
committee participation by the faculty in theatrical design and
technology.
EMPHASIS ON REQUIRED CREATIVE ACTIVITY IN
EVALUATIONS
Any department of theatre is necessarily engaged in production. The faculty designers and technologists usually function
as applied artists to the extent that the exercise of their artistic
capabilities, beyond that required in teaching, is mandated in
cooperation with educational theatre productions - that is,
when productions must be designed, built and/or costumed.
Colleagues within the department often base their estimations
of the deSign/technology professor's competence primarily on
their perceptions of the success of production relationships.
Both in determining teaching/work loads and in evaluation for
promotion and tenure, it must be clear to all parties how much
stress is laid on applied work for departmental productions.
There should also be agreement, in advance, on the evaluation
criteria to be used, and by whom success will be determined.
One common concern should be recognized at the outset:
Theatre is a collaborative medium in which the director, designers, and technologists share responsibility for developing a
production concept and visual style which can be fulfilled
within the production budgets for materials and labor (including skill levels and work hours). When the factors controlling
decisions are primarily artistic ones, the director of the production commonly has the deciding voice. However, when there is
a conflict relating to budget and work hours, another person
having budgetary authority may make the final decision as a
producer would in profeSSional theatre. The person with budgetary authority designated by the institution's administration
may be the department chairperson, the program director, the
director of technical production, or another administrator.
Designers and technologists should not be expected or encouraged to exceed their budgets to accommodate a director or a
particular production. In particular, technologists should not
be expected to extend studio hours beyond the regular schedule,
thus exceeding the budget for labor. (We note that the time of
unpaid technicians, whether volunteers or students fulfilling
studio/laboratory requirements, must be considered as budgeted since its amount is usually predictable. I When a conflict
occurs, the deciding budgetary authority should support the
designers and technologists in their efforts to stay within budgets, particularly when directors exert pressure to obtain special treatment for their productions.
OFF·CAMPUS CREATIVE ACTIVITY
Off-campus creative activity is frequently a virtual requirement for promotion or tenure. This activity may serve several
purposes. If creative activity on campus is not equated to re-

TD&T SUPPLEMENT

FALL 1987

search/scholarship in promotion/tenure evaluations, then such
activity off campus usually is. Off-campus activity may stimulate the artist and provide new sources of inspiration. At a
minimum, the individual stays in touch with the realities of
non-educational theatre. Rarely will the faculty member earn
any substantial sums of money in this fashion, because substitutes must be provided and paid for meeting the on-campus
obligations. (We mention this financial reality out of respect for
the valid administrative concern for "double-dipping".)
On-campus production activities must be considered carefully in any move to require off-campus creative activity as
equivalent to research/scholarship. A survey of costuming personnel, conducted for the USITT Costume Commission in
1982-83 by Dorothy Marshall and committee, reveals an alarming pattern of overwork among costuming artists. Of responding costume designers, 53.5% stated that they regularly worked
40-60 hours per week, while an additional 28.7% worked over
60 hours per week. Thus 82.2% of reporting costume designers,
85% of whom were educators, routinely work in what the
business world recognizes as an overtime situation. Among
costumers, two-thirds of whom were educators, 60% worked
40-60 hours per week, while another 6.7% worked over 60 hours
per week. Statistics are not currently available for the other
design/technology professionals, but indications are that their
experience is similar. While professors in other disciplines may
work similar hours when engaged in research or writing, the
on-campus production activity of theatrical designers and technologists is sometimes not recognized as profeSSional activity
equivalent to research/scholarship. Thus these artists may be
expected to be involved in off-campus theatrical productions or
in research/scholarship in addition to the heavy on-campus
work load.
For the technical director and costumer, satisfying a requirement for off-campus production activity may be a practical
impossibility. First, in contrast to other members of the production team, the technical director is most frequently attached to
a particular facility by being uniquely familiar with its peculiar
mechanical and administrative requirements. For this reason it
is typically as impractical for a technical director to "guest" at
another theatre as it would be for an off-campus theatre to
create an opening by temporarily releasing a member of its own
permanent technical staff. Second, there is an essential difference between the on-site time required of the technicial
director and the costumer and that required of other major
members of the design/production staff. A designer may work
as a guest artist off-campus with only three or four relatively
brief absences (three to six days each) from the institution.
However, the technical director and costumer are by definition
the constant supervisors of the execution of the settings and
costumes and must be present on-site through virtually the
entire construction period. For this reason off-campus work
may necessitate absences from campus of three to six consecutive weeks. If the institution has only one person capable of
assuming the duties of the technical director or the costumer,
the absence of this person to work off-campus may seriously
disrupt the institutions own production program. Under such
circumstances it is imperative that administrators and other
evaluators be made aware of the impossibility of off-campus
production work, and that on-campus creative activity be considered as equivalent to research/scholarship in evaluations.
Theatrical designers and technologists seeking work offcampus, whether in professional, community, or educational
theatre, must maintain a high level of visibility and must be
available on relatively short notice. The need for high visibility
calls for regular, active participation in a variety of professional
societies, as well as frequent participation in off-campus production work. Unfortunately, production companies often engage designers and technical personnel within several weeks of
the performance dates, so that long-range planning of the artist's off-campus activity is usually not possible. These circum-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1987