Cuts to Theatre: Undervaluing an Industry

The teachers and students of the VUW Theatre programme are staring down the barrel of severe job cuts that have been described by staff and students as “blindsiding” and “tearing apart a community”.

The VUW Theatre programme is one of the only ones in the country where students are trained in a practical, multi-disciplinary way that enables students to combine Theatre with other programmes in the BA. The original job cuts proposed by the university would split the Theatre school in half—cutting four out of eight roles—and merging it with the English programme, removing the practical and performance aspects of the course. 

“It feels like our whole discipline has been completely undervalued and misunderstood,” Kerryn Palmer, a Theatre lecturer , told Salient. “[The people making these decisions have] never been down to the theatre program, they have no idea the impact we have on students, and the lasting impact this [will have] on industry,” she said.

The lack of consultation from the university has been frustrating, Palmer said. The data used to measure the financial sustainability of Theatre specifically has misrepresented the value of practical teaching, use of theatre space, and the students who take courses in Theatre without majoring in it.

While the vision for Theatre under the proposed English-Theatre merge is murky, those in the department can assume it will change to a lecture-based programme focused on critical analysis and will not have production courses. Lecture-based learning doesn’t cater to everyone, Palmer says. Put simply, “You can’t teach collaboration and creativity by reading it in a book.”

VUW Theatre is a “pipeline” to the Wellington theatre industry, Palmer said. “We are not just training up actors. We are training up creative leaders. We are training technicians, we are training designers, we are training [teachers].”

This was echoed by theatre administrator, Katie Hill, who runs @SaveVUWTheatre on Instagram. “Our graduates are the ones that work at Circa and Bats and Hannah Playhouse […] because they're trained to not just be actors, they're trained to be anything,” she said.

The response from the Theatre community has been “the light in the dark for the program”, Hill said–with over 100 graduates responding to a call for testimonies to the value of the school, including “industry heavyweights” such as Jemaine Clement, who highlighted the importance of VUW Theatre on his career.

“There’s a general anxiety and worry from the arts community, that [the cuts will] have an effect that will either take years to build back, or it never will,” she said.

Annie Black is a current Honours student researching the impact of teaching Theatre alongside other disciplines, such as History. She had planned to study her Master’s in teaching at VUW, but with the programme potentially becoming disestablished, she now doesn’t know if she’ll be able to stay in Wellington.

She describes the cuts to the Theatre programme as a “gross miscommunication issue”, with the lack of consultation with Theatre staff let alone students.

What comes through from all those involved in VUW Theatre is the immense value of community, especially for students moving away from home for the first time. “If it hadn't been for Theatre, I wouldn't have met half of my closest friends,” Annie said. “By [stripping arts back to the basics, you’re] taking away that sense of community, that sense of collaboration, that sense of people being able to work together.”

“A lot of us will never earn what the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor (VC) earn. But personally, I will go on to probably teach their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren some of their basic life skills,” Annie said.

With a lack of consultation from the VC and the Senior Leadership Team, many in the Theatre school feel as though there’s a lack of empathy and respect. “We have gone through and figured out how we could save that money in a way that preserves the integrity of the program,” Kerryn said, “We just want to have a conversation about it.”

“I would love [the Vice-Chancellor] to make a time and come down to hear us. Not sit in a boardroom, but come to Fairlie Terrace and talk. [Then] we can show you some of what we do.”