The Blacklist
Actors and Stage Managers live in fear of it.
Many suspect that they're on one already.
Or on several.
The Blacklist (I capitalize it in appreciation of its enormity and ubiquity) looms huge in the consciousness of so many of my fellows and enmires them in a fen of fear and inactivity. All of us seek to put on our party manners when coming face-to-face with a potential employer. Once we have the job, we want the employer's experience with us to be positive enough that we might be considered for future work. I am astounded at some of my confreres, normally gregarious and capable of manipulating the emotions of an audience of hundreds, that they attach so much significance to the slightest gesture, comment, article of clothing and are possessed with the idea that one of these bits of minutiae will affect their employment opportunities.
I can tell you, from experience, that barring something absolutely egregious, like sleeping with the director's wife or blowing the theatre up, that there is no blacklist. I will go further. Our own individualities and quirks are what keep us ever present in people's minds - especially employers.
An example. I did a stunt in a feature film that I won't now name. I was young and hungry, and this was a big Hollywood film. A nice feather in my cap. After my stuff was wrapped, I got a call from a casting director who casts background players, asking if I wanted to work. I said, 'yes,' and went for a wardrobe fitting. The address seemed a familiar one, and when I arrived it was indeed, the wardrobe department of the same film I had just worked on. Since I was fairly anonymous in the stunt I performed, I figured that this background work would be icing on the cake and no one would get hurt. Well, I got busted. The background casting director called me, furious that I had taken this background work when I was already a principal. I repeated to her my rationale about no one getting hurt.
It took a few days for my eardrum to recover from the sound of the phone being slammed down. I figured that I had entered the oft-referred to blacklist which I was sure this casting director kept on her person at all times. I could not have been more wrong. For weeks afterward, that casting director called me constantly for work. After some time she forgot why I was foremost in her mind. I guess it proved true that old bromide that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
I was talking to a Stage Manager just yesterday who was asked by the artistic director of a theatre where she was working to do additional work out of the purview of her Equity contract, and for no additional money. She complied, thinking that if she refused, that artistic director might find a more willing (and cheaper, as this SM had been there for quite a few seasons) employee. I got apoplectic for her. "That's why you have a deputy!" I yelled. She acquiesced and was later replaced. A fellow SM who took umbrage and spoke up, did not submit to the boss's request and stillworks there. Coincidence? Luck?
Sometimes the only thing we have is the courage of our convictions. Most of us have that voice in our heads, or in the pits of our stomachs that tells us when things are right or going wrong. Yes, the possibility always exists that we might piss someone off. More often I have found that standing up for oneself is more respected than blithe complicity. It also seems not only to not emplace one onto the non-existent blacklist, but on the whitelist (?) which seems to increase the frequency of work.
If we heed Polonius' advice and are true to ourselves we might find more and better work in the aggregate. I want to shake Actors who sell themselves short. There is one school of thought, too, which says that it's better to be feared, than liked. Let us not give up our considerable power.
