This is the first in an occasional series of guest posts from creatives who see an issue in their field, and want to bring more people into the conversation in the hope of sparking some positive changes. Here, Lizzie Tollemache writes about the dire state of support for theatre for young people in Aotearoa New Zealand – a problem distinct to our country. This week she’s published a piece with The Big Idea outlining some depressing findings from a recent survey of creatives who specialise in making work for the young. She expands on that work here.
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THE PROBLEM
We’re overworked, underpaid, and the single most important tool in our industry’s future.
I’m the Creative Director of a company that makes shows for children. Since 2014, a combo of ticket sales, contracts and festival/events gigs has juuuuuuust covered two (small) salaries and dozens of short term contracts for fabulous freelance artists. If you’re thinking “hang on love, there’s no funding listed”, then you are correct! Along with rockstars like New Zealand Playhouse (who tour new original plays to between 80,000 and 100,000 kids each year), we exist on nothing but hustle, overwork, and the smell of an oily rag. Our shows are good. We’ve won national awards, been programmed internationally, got 5 star reviews from the largest arts festivals in the world…. And we can’t afford to keep doing it.
Fun fact: making shows for children cuts our income by two-thirds.
And there is no fund addressing this sort of work.
So, why on earth do we do it?
Everyone agrees that theatre for children is a good thing. Joy, imagination, an antidote to screen time, an introduction to live arts – the list goes on. Everyone agrees it should be accessible. So a ticket is set at the accessible price of $15 instead of $45… And artists take the hit. Look, no one is working in theatre for fame and fortune (lolololol). But children’s theatre companies and youth programmes are dropping like flies, while large funded organisations offer less money and (often) even less respect in return for more work.
Consider the props, costume, set, storage, accounting, and tech in a show for kids. None of these cost two thirds less, to match the ticket prices. And – I repeat – no fund exists to address this. No production house or festival that makes and programmes work for both adults and children that I’m aware of has sought funding or allocated an annual budget for the necessary subsidies to provide equal pay for equal work. Which is why (I assume) from 2010 to 2020, I was regularly offered $200 a week less for doing kids’ shows than the same, nationally funded theatre paid me to perform in adult ones. All with drastically shorter rehearsal periods, and then performing two or three times every workday.
I began to make my own shows. When you’re the writer, you get 10% of the box office. And let’s be clear, we were always DELIGHTED and grateful to be programmed. But at $15 a ticket, our 10% royalty payment would be tripled in the exact same theatre, with the exact same ticket sales, if we were doing an adult show. Ooof. We started to tour – usually on a box office split with the venue. This means receiving 60% (on average) of net ticket sales, with tickets between a third and half the cost of our adult shows.
If you’re thinking “but Lizzie, the math isn’t math-ing”, then you’re starting to catch on!
JUST A KIDS’ SHOW
Now, all of the above really rips my undies but no-one forces us to spread joy and wonder and big roaring belly laughs to under 8s. Should there be funds so makers don’t live in constant fear? Absolutely! Until then, you know what would make the status quo more bearable? Feeling valued. Instead, there’s a clear hierarchy. Shows for children aren’t just given fewer resources – they are often denied other forms of acknowledgment that ‘adult’ shows take for granted.
This isn’t out of malice. It’s more a massive blind spot across all of Aotearoa theatre, from funders and sponsors, to organisations that support performing arts in the community (including through touring scheduling), to big theatres.
A small example. A cornerstone of theatre is The Opening Night. Speeches, free drinks, complimentary tickets sent to special guests, reviewers, sponsors, a bit of pomp and ceremony. It’s a big occasion.
This is not the case with a kids’ show season. In 16 years I’ve never had an opening celebration. You have to wonder why.
It’s not a question of budget. Invites, speeches, formal acknowledgement: these cost nothing but time. There is no starker contrast than opening a kids season in the same theatre you’ve previously opened an adult one in. For one: mana. The other: crickets.
And yes, of course the good eggs are out there. Great individuals and venues across the country, doing what they can to support their creatives. But the problems and the inherited hierarchies are baked in at a national level, industry-wide.
And against this backdrop of shrugs? As I recently highlighted in the Big Idea, in just a few years, five key players have gone. Closed for a variety of overlapping reasons that collectively signal a lack of investment, attention and respect for both young people and the arts themselves. If this seems a touch dramatic, let’s consider for a moment the immense time and resource that every major sports code pours into their child and youth programmes. Not because they’re cute, Nice To Haves. It’s because they are a strategic and necessary investment – essential for the code’s survival, growth and legacy.
INTRODUCING: THE TIMELINE OF DOOM
2022: Young and Hungry Arts Trust closed. Goodbye 29 years of youth theatre programmes and touring, because a lack of certainty around project-based and long-term funding meant that they couldn’t invest in the long-term employment and planning that’s essential to making things work.
2023: National Theatre for Children (Capital E) closed after 29 years of touring quality work across the country because of complicated things to do with Wellington’s arts infrastructure and a subsidised funding model that is “no longer sustainable in the post-pandemic environment” even with CNZ funding!
2024: Tim Bray Theatre Company closed after 33 years of producing professional children’s theatre because Tim Bray got really ill and because “scraping together the annual budget of $1 million for subsidised quality youth theatre is no longer possible”.
The Creatives in Schools is also axed by the government after 5 years of great success engaging over 63,000 students (as of Dec 2023) and employing hundreds of professional artists across hundreds of arts programmes.
2025: Little Dog Barking closed after a 15 year history of producing internationally acclaimed puppet theatre because of low funding, high costs and the impact of the pandemic on audience demand.
To lose one organisation is unfortunate. To lose two looks like carelessness. Lose five, and you start asking, does our industry (and the people who make funding decisions) hate young people, or just not care about them?
Imagining a moustache-twirling cabal of child haters is fun, but arts leaders aren’t high fiving at the current state of things. I think most inherited a deeply flawed system. Perhaps it’s priorities. Perhaps it’s just indifference – you take something for granted long enough, and then it’s gone. And despite some nice noises the government doesn’t seem to care that much.
Now they must ask, could this hot mess look different? It’s a lot better in Australia (how embarrassing). Two peers who have hopped over the ditch report funding, conditions and artistic rigour which are light years ahead of what they left behind. Children’s theatre, they say, is taken seriously, industry wide – and the pay reflects it.
What those of use in the sector know is that arts leaders must urgently invest in the audience of tomorrow.
There are people out there fighting the good fight. Performing Arts and Young People Aotearoa (PAYPA) was set up in 2017 to address many of these issues and they are doing the best they can to support the sector with very limited resources, but things just seem to be getting harder.
PAYPA’s director, Dr Kerryn Palmer – who feels she has been yelling into the void for nearly a decade about the desperate need to address these problems – has three top recommendations:
“First, there needs to be ringfenced funding for the Performing Arts and Young People’s sector. This includes significant investment for companies dedicated to this work.
Second, the Creatives In Schools Programme needs to be reinstated and rolled out to ALL schools in New Zealand. (This will help to build the importance and understanding to young people and their caregivers – that the Arts are essential!)
Third, the performing arts industry and in particular our festivals need to get behind the sector and uplift it. Shows for children should not be an afterthought for programming – they should lead the programming. Theatres and venues need to understand that the BOX OFFICE MODEL DOES NOT WORK for PA & YP work- and they need to do better with investing in them.”
We need an attitude shift led from the top, ensuring all arts festivals, production houses, and national touring bodies are giving shows for children the same respect as those for adults. The 2023 census showed 18.7% of our population is under the age of 14. Artistic Directors and boards – what percentage of your programme is for them? What kind of experience do the artists who work those kids’ shows have? Is it objectively harder, worse or lower paid than those who work your adult shows? How are the young audiences welcomed into your venue – as you set the tone for a formative live arts experience?
It’s not impossible. I see hope all around me. Christchurch City Council and Taranaki Festival of Lights both put on a stellar arts programme every summer, which value artists, and make it free for families to attend by partnering with major corporate sponsors. A business owner in Kāpiti saw such value in our shows that he covered our travel costs from Christchurch to make sure we came back. And a local philanthropist once paid for us to tour 19 remote and under-resourced schools in the Hawkes Bay (we love you, Bruce). But these are the exceptions. Until they are the rule, we have a long way to go. For the sake of our industry, let’s start moving!
To tautoko Kerryn, here are three things that can happen right now:
- Recognise the value of work for young audiences. Speak about it with respect. ALL SEASONS get an opening function. Phrases like “It’s just a kids show” have no place in our industry.
- Invest in work for young audiences. Resource it properly. Collaborate with the artists and companies who are already making it. If you fund or programme work, I am calling on you.
- Take kids to shows. If you’re an auntie, a parent, a nana or a koro, take them to anything made with love by Aotearoa artists. When you see good stuff, tell the venue you want more. If you see a programme with nothing for kids, ask why not. Karens, this is your moment!
Also, the PAYPA annual hui for everyone who works with and for young’uns is happening this weekend (November 7-9) at the Court Theatre and includes shows, workshops and chat. IT’S FREE to attend. COME ALONG. Sign up here!
Lizzie Tollemache is a theatre maker, variety artist and Creative Director of Rollicking Entertainment (which tells original New Zealand stories, weaving interactive theatre with circus and illusion). Rollicking shows have toured seven countries and had multiple seasons at Circa, The Court Theatre, Centrepoint, World Buskers Festival, and dozens of arts festivals. Their celebrated works for children include Messy Magic Adventure and Kitchen Chaos. Lizzie is also a previous Associate Director of Centrepoint Theatre, where she established outreach and education programmes such as Sunday Script Sessions, which are still running today. She’s an in-demand freelancer throughout Australasia: acting, directing and devising for theatre, cabaret and youth companies.
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