Producing (Global Majority) Producers

by Rafia Hussain

So, the day has finally arrived; we’ve just published the Producing Producers report, co-authored by myself (Independent Producer) and Tom Six (Reader in Politics and Performance, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). This report evidences how people get into producing, the barriers they face and what we can do to improve the sector and make producing a more viable and sustainable career path, especially for racialised producers.

I won’t spoil it (as I think you should read the whole thing over a cup of tea/drink of your choosing) but some of the key findings are:

• A significant 20% racial pay gap in theatre producing
  Unpaid work and overwork are both endemic to theatre-producing
• Career development depends on informal infrastructure that lacks transparency

If you’re a theatre producer and reading this, these findings probably come as no surprise.

We all know the problems and why it’s not accessible to everyone but to have evidence to point to, I hope will be useful for us as we try to work to improve this picture. Which brings me onto the juicier part for me: what can be done about it.

Alongside the survey (quantitative data) I held some semi-structured interviews (qualitative
data) and Tom and I facilitated a focus group to co-design solutions designed with and for
producers.

Some of the key recommendations that came out of the focus group are:

• Provision of training and mentoring for producers at all career stages
• Development of paid pathways into producing
• Guides to best practice in contracting, employing or collaborating with producers

The big gap in the sector identified by the focus group (big thanks to everyone who contributed
to this!) was that we producers need an independently funded and led organisation to be materially supported by a network of organisations whose core aim is the development of producers and maintenance of an antiracist methodology underpinning all of its activities.

If you are an independent producer or a theatre organisation interested in being part of delivering the recommendations for the sector that conclude the report, please slide into our DMs (by which I mean email us) and let’s get to work.