no matter how much you want to perform, no matter if it’s a dream role or show, etc. - DO NOT WORK HERE. i read the gigintel posts, saw the facebook discussion, and watched the tiktoks blasting this place and was still determined to book a contract no matter what this summer. i am grateful for the people i met but everything else is abysmal. i knew the risks walking in and decided to still pursue the contract- but this place seriously needs to be shut. down. I have truly never felt so disrespected as a theatre maker. also, I worked at one of the *worst rated* companies on GigIntel & had an INCREDIBLE experience there. So, take with the information what you will and do your own research. HOUSING: “housing is provided at no cost to you” - you are expected to bring your own pans, plates, dishes, cups, etc… sheets & pillows i can understand, but dishes?? plates?? across the country?? on planes?? - our contract stated that we would have air conditioning, yet my housing did not come with. we had a heat wave and brought up to the artistic director multiple times that, even with fans, our apartment was reaching 90 degrees, even when the outside air was cooler. the AD laughed at us and said “well when i did summerstock we didn’t have ac and were fine.” until we brought up that heat stroke was extremely likely, he didn’t take us seriously. this went on for 4 days in the middle of 90+ degree weather. when he finally caved and brought us (one singular ac unit), he complained to us that the store made him pay taxes on it. it did not efficiently cool off the apartment. - there were three houses for the company. 2/3 were air conditioned. one of the houses should have literally been condemned. it did not have lights, running water in the kitchen, or a working oven- just a stove- no microwave or additional appliances. - guest directors and additional company members are housed IN THE THEATRE with no real kitchen and with the dressing room bathrooms for their bathrooms. - When concerns were brought up about the living conditions of one of the houses, the AD released everyone from rehearsal early aside from the members of said house. Then, he proceeded to berate and yell at those company members -- multiple company members almost walked out that very night. CULTURE/COMMUNITY: - the house seats 140 people. we never had more than 35 in the audience (which only happened twice the entire season!) our normal number was 8-10 audience members. it is incredibly draining to perform for 5 people in the house. - the company manager was also the costume designer and had no experience in company management. the artistic director leaves town for the rest of the season once his show is open, so for the rest of the summer we are reporting to a 19 year old with no company management experience. - the theatre has a horrible relationship with its town. - there is a farmers market every saturday behind the theatre. company members are expected to be at the farmers market at 8:45 (before a 9am-10pm day) to promote the show. in our contracts, the languaged used is “agrees to appear at promotional events.” what is NOT mentioned in the contract is that we were forced to sing solos from our books every single week. we were retaliated against if we tried to not sing, even though many of us were blowing our voices out for these performances before five hours of rehearsal and then a 2.5 hour show. now, i have happily done promotional events at other contracts and have no issue if we are wanted in the space and actually promoting the show. the farmers market DOES NOT WANT US THERE, which they explicitly said at our first one. the farmers market pays a musician to provide music for the morning. we are doing glorified karaoke where no one wants us at 8:45 in the morning. it also simply not sustainable to do that, rehearsal, and shows, with only 1.5 hr breaks. when brought up to the nineteen year old company manager (with no company management experience), they did not take our concerns seriously and forced us to sing. on Saturdays, the day of the farmers market, your rehearsal block is from 8:45-2:00 with no more than 5 min breaks. - the “guild” is the donors & volunteers. most are incompetent or don’t do anything. there is one wonderful man on the guild "J" and one incredible woman “L.” they both advocated for us and helped us get an ac, among always showing up and supporting us. they have said to us to come to them if we have any issues with admin, and had kept their words and advocated. season holders are few and far between. with how little tickets they sell, i have no clue how canterbury is still open. the guild show (donor show) was attended by less than ten people. TEN. REHEARSALS: - the artistic director will take three hours to block 5 pages. he treats the actors like they’re in elementary school theatre and doesn’t trust the professional actors he hired to take notes, realize mistakes, or apply corrections. you will run a number 10+ times if it is not perfect, even if you learned it 10 seconds prior. - our music director (who had no musical direction experience) quit after 10 minutes of our first rehearsal. we had not seen her since. the replacement they got is a sweet older woman who can plunk out notes just fine, but she cannot accompany, play at tempo, or give vocal notes/direction. instead of vocal notes, she tries to give acting and blocking notes. she would give actors notes once the show had already been open, during the receiving line. - the artistic director won’t pay for tracks, but instead illegally rip the vocals from the cast albums — this lead to us cutting (illegally) lines and sections of music to fit with the cast album instead of following the libretto & score. all because he couldn’t find a music director who could actually play. I cannot speak for the choreographer directly but this is what we witnessed in the rehearsal room: - the artistic director (who also directs) did not give the choreographer a list of numbers he wanted choreographed, so the choreographer did their own research and came up with choreography for the numbers that needed choreography. multiple times, in the room after or while they were teaching choreography, he would change their choreography and not even discuss it with the choreographer. -he also would put the choreographer on the spot and expect them to have choreography for numbers that did not have any implication of choreography based on the text, music, or stage directions. -he specifically told them in the room at the end of the night that the next morning, they would be teaching choreography for a solo number (that should not have been choreographed), so after their 13 hour day, they had to choreograph an entire number with less than 10 hours before it needed to be ready. they taught it to the actor and when it came to showcase it in the rehearsal, the AD/D watched the number, shut off the music, and completely re-choreographed the entire thing- without any acknowledgement. - The choreographer received a $10.00/show show pay bump on top of the weekly salary. Thirty extra dollars (total) FOR CHOREOGRAPHING THREE MUSICALS (and the choreographer also ended up choreographing for a play!!) TECH: - our schedule stated we were starting one of the tech rehearsals with a q2q. despite this, we were expected to be performing full out- which was not communicated to us because we were TOLD we could mark during tech. we were running musical numbers 7+ times. - we eventually brought this up to AD on a break and he berated all of us for questioning him and his method. - AD made multiple cast members (including a minor) cry. - AD insisted on picking up minor from their house because they didn’t have a ride to rehearsal — the parents had never interacted with the AD and were not comfortable and AD was upset with the minor. - for strike, the AAD & AD sit around and watch you work but do not help in any way, yet criticize and correct your methods. - if you are not in one of the shows, you will be contracted to be “props” for the shows you are not in. IT IS NOT PROPS. it is scene shop time. i have no problem working on scene shop stuff (even though thats not what my contract said) for the show i am supposed to be working on. but, when you finish the work for that show and are still required to be there, assigned tedious tasks just to be kept busy. i have been required to be at all work blocks (3, 3 hour blocks a day) to work on tasks that did not correspond with the show I was contracted to work on- and by tedious, busywork tasks, I mean: *taking all the pictures from the upstairs lobby down and organizing them by year, creating a new path in the basement, only to move it back the next day, etc. - SM was not allowed to call cues. There was no ASM. Lighting Designer (if you can call them that) called the shots. MISC: -185/week for most contracts. -You're not allowed in the dressing rooms during the shows. -They work on a fine system (for using phones during rehearsal, swearing around donors, not being off book, etc.) but the AD will do everything you'd be fined for- the AD kept his ringer on and would answer calls in the middle of rehearsal, in the middle of scenes. He could've sent it to voicemail or put his phone on DND- this happened at least ONCE every rehearsal. AD would also swear in front of the minor.

It was an alright experience for me. They don’t pay well at all. $180 a week and they house you with elderly guild members. Only one issue I had was safety during the shows. They don’t lock their doors. Anyone could walk in and go straight upstairs to the backstage dressing rooms. (This may or may not have happened) 😬Overall, Michigan City is a quiet town not much happening there but the shopping scene is quite nice and quaint.