Have I broken up with the theatre properly this time? Is this also the longest break-up of my life…?
Probably, but then theatre does have something of a toxic boyfriend air about it. This is, in fact, more of a decades-long situation with the kind of guy who brings a typewriter to your apartment (IYKYK).
The first time I broke up with theatre was in 2021. I went for a Literary Manager job and swore I was done with theatre if I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it, and I was done. That didn’t come from nowhere; I’d spent about eight years trying to get ‘soemwhere’ in theatre. And while I hadn’t got ‘nowhere’, I still struggled to get anywhere meaningful.
I had, yes, carved out a thriving theatre reviewing role. And I think it was well-regarded in Wales (Aside from that person’s husband who decided to DM me that time or that fellow critic who didn’t like that I liked Susie Izzard’s performance…but I digress). In the somewhat pre-influencer age of theatre criticism, I was doing well, if completely unpaid for it. Equally, I’d done a few theatre-adjacent jobs. I sometimes got asked to write for websites and programs. I’d been teaching freelance bits and script editing/dramaturging again for a while on a low-level freelance basis. I was chair of a theatre company, something I was incredibly proud of.
But I couldn’t quite kick that door open enough to get through it. I was allowed to do bits on the outside, on the periphery. But I wasn’t allowed inside. I watched people who had been students when we were ushering together get ‘real’ jobs or develop their creative work to the point it became their primary work, and I was still here…on the outside. Heck, I watched students of mine get further than I ever had quicker than I had…and it was hard. But I kept fighting on the creative side and all the other things. And again, it wasn’t that I got nowhere; I just didn’t quite get anywhere.
The one problem, as it always did, came down to money. I was that much older and could not exist with no money. I needed a ‘real’ job alongside trying to ‘make it’ in theatre. I also was older, I hadn’t come from a local cohort of drama students, and I wasn’t quite in with any of the various crowds.
I also wore multiple hats. Yes, I was still sort of an academic. I was writing books. I was doing all the other jobs I did, too, and never quite found my way inside.
Then the pandemic hit. And I found…I didn’t miss it. In all honesty, at first, it was a relief. I’d been run into the ground juggling reviewing, a day job, and all the teaching, freelance bits and whatever. But the emotional liability (or guilt-tripping) of reviewing started getting to me. Smaller companies, in particular, would make me feel like I wasn’t ‘passionate’ enough or ‘didn’t care’ if I couldn’t make it…when the truth was there were only so many hours in a day. Also, thinking back to 2019 was a particularly (in my memory at least) viscous time for critics; if we weren’t being entirely positive, there was often backlash, personal (see husband sliding into my DMs or the frankly unhinged Michael Jackson rant I was subjected to for not liking someone’s piece particularly). In short, reviewing had broken me, the theatre had broken me, and I found myself…relieved to be able to stop, not at the reason, but relieved at the break.
What came next was the feeling that I didn’t miss theatre like other people did. Yes, I was sad to be stuck in the house away from people, but I didn’t feel like I’d had my arm chopped off not to be going to the theatre every week. I eventually missed it a bit, but not…that much, if I’m honest.
So I arrived at 2021 thinking, ‘I’m done.’ I tried once more, and then I was done.
Equally, since then, I’ve been unable to write plays. Something in me just…broke, and I no longer know how to do it. Maybe it’s because it feels like a futile exercise. Or perhaps I just needed a break. Who knows? I never say never on the creative side, but I’ve long been at a place where I have to do it for myself, not in some dim hope of success. That feels strangely more like a decision I’m at ‘peace’ with than others. I know I can pick up a pen or keyboard any time and write, and it probably has as much or little chance of being made as any other. I know, too, that I have creative collaborators who I want to work with and who want to work with me. Whether it's now or in another five years. That feels like my one win in discovering the people I work with (discovering it the hard way mostly but getting to that point feels like a win).
But in 2024, I went again for ‘one last’ theatre job. I applied for a role that was something of a ‘dream role’, working in accessibility in theatre. I’d been tangentially working on this for several years when I was still a Chair of the board in a theatre, and it felt like, yes, at last, something I was well suited to in theatre.
Of course, I didn’t get it.
And that one broke me. I sat and cried at my desk for two hours. It felt like once again being back where I’d always been, trying, failing the endless circle of ‘not you,’ ‘not quite’, ‘not good enough.’ I spoke to an actor friend who had quit theatre recently about how they were always second choice for every role, and that’s how I’ve always felt in theatre: we like you, we know you…but not you.
I don’t know how often you have to go back to that bad boyfriend (And his stupid typewriter) to finally say you’re done. Perhaps, like any toxic relationship, you need a hard breakup to get out of that situation.
Because as much as I want to, as much as I’m done, I'm done, so very done. Theatre, I’ve never been able to quit you. I get pulled in, or I get so I can’t entirely leave. With one foot still in the door reviewing or thinking (kidding myself?) I’ll still write plays. I still teach, I am still dramaturg and g, and I love these things passionately. But I have to embrace that these will always ‘only’ be a side hustle on the side of other side hustles… because they aren’t sustainable.
And that’s actually the thing: after a certain point, the hard truth theatre isn’t sustainable for most of us. I got offered a job this week doing some work on a production. I couldn’t make it work alongside my job (and my job is both flexible and super understanding; if I couldn’t, I can’t make it work anywhere). Unless you’ve ‘made it enough to have a sustainable income or someone to support you financially, if you don’t and have zero caring responsibilities or, frankly, other responsibilities…you can’t really make it. Is it any wonder most of us age out of theatre or the arts?
But the old me, the 2019 me, would have made it work, or at least feel like they’d failed if they didn’t. Similarly, another job I was offered clashed with a holiday I’d booked months in advance. I might not have, on the off chance, had something come up. But also, I wouldn’t have preferred the fact I have a holiday booked. Or even a job to go to. But it has been down to me for a long time now; I’ve refused to make theatre the centre of my world…moreover, I don’t want to.
And I’m so much happier now—I can’t deny it. In 2019, I was putting theatre first and trying to somehow be ‘part’ of it above all else. My entire life outside of my ‘day job’ revolved around it. I based my holidays around it, going to cities like New York and London to see theatre (a massive privilege also). But it was everything, and still, I was not enough.
And when it went away, instead of feeling empty, I was…free.
And when life came back, I changed my life. Theatre is a part of it, but not a huge part. And my life is so much richer. My life is better for having other interests away from theatre and friends away from that world. For simply not making it the centre of my world.
Do I miss it being that way? No. Do I still love it? Yes and no. I still get passionate about theatre. I still find things I fall in love with on stage that I enjoy a normal amount and dislike. I think I concluded that I still like theatre, but maybe I don’t love it. And maybe that’s okay, too.
But, there is still the aching… disappointment of putting so much of your life into something and it coming to …not much at all. In the scheme of things, I see that theatre has led me to where I am now, even if where I am isn’t in theatre. But I’m still sad and disappointed that it didn’t work out. Even if I’m relieved and happy to be out, I can still cry about the things that didn’t happen while being ok with where I might eventually end up. Both things can be true.
I will say my word of warning to those still fighting, or even those on the inside: theatre is still just a job. And while it is an all-consuming one, a world that takes you in, all of you if you're in it. But like any job, you’re still replaceable and disposable- more so than in other industries. I’d also say it’s not healthy to have it be your whole world, whatever your career. You never know when it might all disappear. But don’t let the thing you love become what you hate because you made it your entire world, your whole self. Maybe save yourself a bit of yourself while you can.
And while I still think of how much it hurt a few weeks ago to sit and cry for the life I never entirely made. For the jobs I’d never do, the work I’d never make. Maybe there are also a few tears of relief that I get to continue building a life I denied myself for so long, being desperate to be part of something that would never want me. Maybe I will now get to make a life, not a ‘career’. And maybe no, it was never meant to be. And perhaps that’s ok.
I can and will one day write again for theatre. But it will be from a place of someone who knows herself, her boundaries and her work. It will be with people who want the ‘work’ and me with it. It will be with people who will collaborate in the true sense of the world, and it won’t be a battle. And I won’t be so desperate to have something of mine made that I’ll accept anything. And that includes putting interpretive dance in my work.
And that’s, too, where being ‘done’ comes from. I’m done accepting anything because I’m so desperate for something. I also slowly know my worth and know I’m worth more financially and in how I’m treated than the theatre is willing to give.
I also know I am different from ten years ago. People change, and interests change. And while at one point it was something to be aspired to seeing all the theatre, and being so immersed in it that it was everything now, it just doesn’t…interest me, and that’s ok. I have other things, from books to music to god help me, sports, that fill that part of my life. I have, too. As a result, a richer array of people for whom the theatre is just a nice thing in their life they sometimes do, rather than their whole world.
And you know what? I’m happier for it, even if getting there was hard and even if the future is unknown once again.
And did I mention the lack of interpretative dance?
Either way, we’re done with that boy and his typewriter.
This post screams bravery. Well done, Emily
What a wonderful piece. I feel somewhat similar re galleries/exhibitions. I have no capacity to push my way for no returns. I'm happy I have done what I did, but it didn't work out...