The other day I ran into someone who had been promoted in a job with a fairly large company. When I heard what she was making I about died. She was paid litterly double what the intern was making and yet she had the title Manager in her title. I won’t tell you what the rate was but is not livable in the DC area. I made me think back to some advice my good friend Jenni Bowman once gave.
“Ask for more money. Always. Unless you honestly feel excited about what they tell you they'll pay you. Make yourself a realistic budget and then do jobs that will pay you enough to live. If you do this you'll make more money faster.”
That was a quote she gave me to share with my Thespian Students at the MO State Thespian Conference. Jenni is so right. Make a reasonable budget for yourself and decide what you need to live. If you can’t make at least that much then you shouldn’t take the job unless you can find ways of other income while holding that job.
Ask if you are on the same playing field as people in other departments with the same type of job. That is a fair question and it is fair that you are within 2-5k of those people. We are work in theatre because we love it. But we already get paid below other industries so I encourage you to look hard at the salary and make sure you have enough to live.
While having drinks with a friend yesterday he told me a story of a client that was rude and mean to him and how he was trying to help the client resolve the problem. When my friend told his boss about what happened and offered a plan to his boss about how to correct the mistake they made, his boss told him to forget about it and tell the client they were going to drop the client. My friend’s boss would not be tolerant of anyone who is so rude and mean to his staff.
Theatre is much the same. Be careful of how you treat people. For one, you never know who knows who and where people will end up. I have been surprised of the number of people who treated me badly through high school and college who now ask me for favors or tickets.
It just doesn’t work like that. I know people have not gotten jobs or cast because they were divas and then the people below them soon rose to a position of power (casting or management).
Treat everyone with kindness and if you don’t like someone I suggest you avoid conflict. To put it simple BE NICE.
Yesterday I talked about a couple of ways to use Twitter. Now let’s focus on Twitter and Broadway. There are four specific examples of Twitter on Broadway that I know of and I am sure there are more.
1) ROCK OF AGES – An Off-Broadway musical that moved to Broadway and now is nominated for the Best Musical Tony Award. They use Twitter to show off ads and discounts. Nothing was of interest to me. I “un-followed” them pretty fast. Maybe if you live in NYC and love the show you would be interested in following them but I found the information useless.
2) NEXT TO NORMAL – Again a Best Musical nominee that started Off-Broadway then came to Washington to return to the Great White Way. They have used Twitter in a whole new way. They have the characters Tweeting their inner thoughts in order of the show and it is lasting several weeks. I think this is an interesting way to use Twitter but I really don’t get much out of it. It is being drug out so long that I am not sure where we left off and would have to go their site to see the whole story. I personally would rather just listen to the CD.
3) TONY AWARDS – This I find be a better use of Social Media. I think I like it more because it covers all the Broadway shows with focusing on the Tony Awards. I think it could go a step further with talking about when shows are going to be on TV. Like the Next to Normal cast being on the View.
4) KEN DAVENPORT – I saved the best for last. I love his tweets. He uses Twitter to talk about his day. Meetings he goes to and thoughts he has about certain issues with theatre and he posts articles. The brilliant part is he slips in things about his shows. So you don’t even realize you are getting ads sometimes. He doesn’t just send you ad after ad but slips them so you don’t even notice.
How could you use Twitter to best promote yourself or your show. Why would people want to follow you and I mean REALLY follow you. Make it interesting.
I have talked about Facebook and the why I like it so much on this blog. Now it is time to talk about the other big social networking / media site Twitter. Twitter is new to me. I have had an account for 3 months. But I am just now learning how to use it. Lots of people use it as a Facebook wall and just write what they are doing throughout the day. But others are starting to really get a lot out of it.
The updates of your day are really boring unless you are a star or someone I am extremely interested in like Ken Davenport. A friend of mine said this weekend that Twitter won’t be around in a year. At which point we made a bet. If Twitter is more popular I win if it less popular then he wins. The hard part about this bet is that I can not find the number of Twitter users today.
When you start with Twitter it might take a while to find it useful. You might start to follow a lot of people that you really find useless. But stick with it. Un-follow them and work to build the right Twitter group to follow. Then you will find it useful.
Theatres are still figuring out how to use Twitter. Some just send out discounts and specials. (I un-follow those people fast.) Others are having important people in their company talk about what they are doing. Those I think are the most interesting. Who wouldn’t want an insight of the company they enjoy. Arena Stage just offered free tickets in Tweet. I think this was to test how many of the followers really read the tweets. I would be curious of the results. In my own experience the followers that act on tweets is very small but then again I am not giving away free tickets.
If you find Twitter useful please write a comment about how you use Twitter it could be to just get news or just follow friends. And don’t forget to follow me at @nderaj.
Happy Memorial Day Everyone. Because of the holiday there will be no regular post but I wanted to thank two people who have improved the blog and I hope to be thinking more of you soon.
First, Dave Inman who took the new picture you see, among many others. He made me look really good and I can’t thank him enough. He doesn’t do this professionally, yet, but he might as well, he has all the right equipment and made me look better than I really did. If you need pictures, for yourself or for a fundraising calendar (wink) let me know and I can see if he is interested. A shoot with him is a blast because he is such a fun guy. Brush up on your old movies first though.
Second, is Clayton Smith who has been editing the blog for me when I write enough in advance that he has time to do so. I am the worst about writing in advance but when I do he really polishes the posts to make them clearer. He is a very smart graduate student in Chicago and will soon be looking for a place in theatre management. I hope we get to work together on something because I really trust his insight and love his creative thinking.
Thanks again for everything guys. You make me look and sound great.
The other day I ran into someone who had been promoted in a job with a fairly large company. When I heard what she was making I about died. She was paid litterly double what the intern was making and yet she had the title Manager in her title. I won’t tell you what the rate was but is not livable in the DC area. I made me think back to some advice my good friend Jenni Bowman once gave.
