Appalachian Center for the Arts
- Creative company member , within last year
Breeding ground for inappropriate behavior, both in the theatre and in the town, with multiple clear breaches of contract being found. Bad reputation in the area for harboring bad apples (predatory people with history) on staff and the board. Appropriate steps not taken by management, until it was too late. Shows/projects were disorganized, cluttered, and barely put on by the skin of their teeth. Creative company (contract workers) had little to zero support of permanent staff. Multiple tech roles being thrown at them at the absolute last minute. Pay was way too low for the amount of hours and different jobs demanded. Any concerns brought up were consistently shot down and down played. They made a huge deal about watching hours but constantly made contract workers work over 50 hours a week then would try to laugh off concerns regarding it. Chain of command was not clear, people had no idea who to report to most often than not. Mental state and emotional well-being of contract employees deteriorated by the end, barely making it to the finish line. My advice? Stay far away. There’s some great community members who are deserving of a safe place to artistically express themselves. Young, optimistic artists who accept contracts here do so completely on false promises and are fully taken advantage of. I hope the staff there can learn from their mistakes and right their wrongs for the sake of the community members who desperately need a creative outlet. (edited)
Anonymous - 04/20/2025 - Creative Team, within last year
Overworked, underpaid, little-to-no marketing, too many projects with too small a crew. Two weekend runs of a single show while still trying to produce like 2-3 others at the same time. Actively discourage discussing pay among crew members. NO TD, no full time people beside the ED and AD, the AD of which has good ideas sometimes but i do not always see his influence reflect on the theatre in a good way. A lot of these problems come from backing, or lack thereof, from the city. Can be a great place to work, but suspicious behaviors and practices have left it very disheartening Have lost 3 hiree’s in the last two years because of health reasons (on the cause of early termination) but they might say different.
Anonymous - 10/21/2024