I'm all about stipends, but with the theatre just breaking even, it becomes increaseingly difficult to justify that expense (considering how had it is for some people to even make budgeting shows a priority, how would you even get to the point of stipend expenses).

An idea might be to take each show's net income and allocate a percentage to cover gas expenses.  It's an incentive for producers to not use their entire budget on things (i.e. crack down on directors who spend without much thought).

Well, I apologize ahead of time:  this topic presses a couple of my buttons, so here’s another Kibitzer Dissertation! 

As the variety of responses to this topic suggests, there may be as many precedents in paying for services as there are community theatres.  I have developed an enormously ambivalent position on the issue of paid positions in community theatres.  Having been a paid, full-time managing director of two community theatres, part of my ambivalence has to do with my own personal guilty feelings about getting paid to do those jobs.  But that aside, I believe the fundamental nature of community theatre is inextricably linked to its volunteer-based roots. 

The essence of community theatre is captured in the idealism of the rallying cry, “Hey kids, let’s do a show!” The very spirit of that exclamation is antithetical to a professional settting.  It’s all about the love of the art.  A love so deep and so committed that just doing it is its own reward.  Ask almost anyone who started in community theatre and successfully crossed over to the professional side.  It became a job.  The spirit was lost – or at least transformed into something altogether different.  

I take exception to the myth that money buys quality.  I have seen shows directed by “professional” directors that were just horrible and I have seen shows directed by “amateur” directors that reached impeccable artistic achievement and I have seen everything in between.  I think the trap we get into is confusing the word “amateur” with the word “amateurish”.  A few years ago I wasted over $255 for tickets so my family and I could see a “professional” production of “A Chorus Line” at a major professional theatre in Philadelphia.  It was one of the most amateurish productions I have ever seen.  I sat there and KNEW that we had far more talented “amateur” performers at our community theatre.  So much for stereotypes. 

When I hear the term “professional” in association with community theatre, it cues a rant on one of my most emotional pet peeves.  One of the things that completely undermines the entire intent and spirit of community theatre is the desire to be “professional”.  (Quite frankly, as much as I love the originators and coordinators of this site, I am deeply offended by their tag line at the opening of the site:  “The Home Of Professional Amateurs”.)  I saw an old display once that referred to that community theatre as a “professional community theatre.”  That is a contradiction in terms and spelled out very clearly to me why that theatre had been having so many artistic as well as participation problems.  Let me make no bones about this:  We ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL and our intention is NOT to create a PROFESSIONAL PRODUCT.  That doesn’t mean that at times our audiences experience what they consider a professional result.  I would never argue this point when an audience member would liken a show to a professional version they had seen.  It’s the old adage that you can argue facts, not perceptions.  But I also understood that what they were really saying is they had an artistic experience that significantly surpassed their expectations.  The audience can call it anything they want; as participants and managers (paid or volunteer), however, we need to know who and what we are if we are to be successful.  Mission contradiction can be deadly. 

At a Pennsylvania Association of Community Theatres conference a few years ago, Gary Cohen was brought in as a keynote speaker.  Mr. Cohen is (or was at that time – I don’t know if he still is or not!) producing director for Plays-in-the-Park in Edison, New Jersey.  He described his theatre and its incredible budget.  It seemed to me that the only people NOT paid were the actors.  Although his talk was enormously entertaining, I was disturbed to think of his theatre as a real community theatre.  This is one extreme.  Then there are theatres that pay no one, never have, and never will.  I don’t know that there is a pat answer to this issue except to say that if a theatre is thinking about paying people, know two things:

1.       Pay one person once, you are setting a precedent and will very likely be paying people to do this (these) job(s) forever.

2.      Know precisely what you expect to accomplish by having a paid person do whatever it was (a) volunteer(s) were (was) previously doing.

The second of these is too often a knee-jerk solution to the problem of not having enough volunteers.  I’m now going to insult a lot of people.  The reason why there aren’t enough volunteers is because there has not been enough commitment to a system of ongoing volunteer recruitment and/or training. 

I’ll put this provocative statement into a broader context.  It reflects what I deeply believe is the most basic vision/mission/purpose of community theatre: 

We provide a comprehensive, soup-to-nuts experience in all phases of the production and presentation of theatrical entertainment for members of the community. 

And I mean ALL.  There is no job that cannot be done by a volunteer.  Some community theatres have chosen to pay people to do certain things, while others remain fully volunteer.  I have seen exceptional productions under both systems.  But no matter where a community theatre falls in its scope of paid vs. volunteer participants, without volunteers you are not a community theatre.  That means you must always be in a recruitment mode.  

With this in mind, here’s my last thought on this rant:  when you pay someone to do something, you are taking that opportunity away from a volunteer.  In other words, as soon as you write the check, you’re undermining community theatre’s most basic function!