Ah, the artistic process.
The moment when an illusion is shattered tends to rend one's heart quite painfully. Recently, I began to have growing concerns over the management at the current restaurant in which I work. In short, their judgment calls tend to be poor, and they tend to think that the problem is us, the servers. There was a time when they treated us like human beings, and we responded in kind. We were a happy workplace, with happy workers.
Ever since our general manager bought in as an owner, he's gotten the business stick crammed super far up his ass. I fear he's beginning to see us more as numbers and drones, rather than people. He claims to have hired us for our personalities, but suddenly our personalities are irksome and incorrect. Our "attitudes" are always bad, despite the fact that they're the same as they've always been. Our attitudes come with a side of "not taking bullshit", and suddenly we're under fire.
Much of it has to deal with the fact that the two people in charge can't seem to run a restaurant. The decision they make stem from the wrong places, which are selfish places. I understand that they're tired, or whatever, but both of their decisions correlate directly to lessening their workload by micromanaging us. It sounds convoluted, but that's how I feel. It's casting the blame off of themselves by making us do the things that they don't want to do and don't want to take the blame for.
In terms of bad judgment calls, they fired someone today. This someone tends to work A LOT of shifts. This is, mind you, right before Inauguration, Restaurant Week and Valentine's day. Mind you, they've hired a friend of mine, but I fear that they're just going to throw her in there without any regard for her wants or needs. Their needs, as the managers, is becoming elevated over ours, and they don't seem to care. I miss being treated like a human.
* * *
In the artistic world, I'm working with a director who is very spiritual and very spacey. She also seems to forget who I am every time I come into the rehearsal room. I understand that I have a small roll, and that perhaps I don't get to work with her as much as the bigger roles, but it stings a little that she hasn't taken any time to get to know me or how I work. It makes me feel really unappreciated, honestly.
Then, when we finally get to a scene I'm actually in, that we've never blocked before, she basically states that: "It needs to really move, or I'll cut the hell out of this scene."
From the directorial standpoint, with a time crunch looming over us, it makes sense. However, we haven't really gotten a chance to work the scene. We'd run the lines before, without the main character, but this was the first time on its feet with complete actions. It didn't rock because we were feeling our way through it on our feet for the first time. Again, while I understand where she's coming from, it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Some of this stems from the fact that I, like in the last show I was in, would've done things very differently from casting to rehearsal to message. But I cast that aside, because my role is that of an actor, and I work for the director's vision. It's not resentment that she's not doing things the way I envisioned.
Now, because this is two shows in a row, I worry that it means that I'll never be able to work with a director whose process and visions I don't agree with. Or maybe it's because I have so little time required of me to learn lines, choreography, blocking, etc, that I have so much time to question and think. I never speak up, of course; it's not my place.
The show is fun, but like Six Characters in Search of an Author, I sense that it could be so much more than it is, and if my vision is correct, then the show will run in a manner that I expect it to, and I'll definitely feel that it could have been much, much better.
I re-read that, and it made me feel like I'm being very egotistical about it. I don't think this is coming from a place of ego, though. I'm not sure where it's coming from, yet. I'm not trying to say the show would be better if I directed it, but I feel, once again, that the director has some wonderful tools that she's neglecting for the sake of superfluous things.
Ever since our general manager bought in as an owner, he's gotten the business stick crammed super far up his ass. I fear he's beginning to see us more as numbers and drones, rather than people. He claims to have hired us for our personalities, but suddenly our personalities are irksome and incorrect. Our "attitudes" are always bad, despite the fact that they're the same as they've always been. Our attitudes come with a side of "not taking bullshit", and suddenly we're under fire.
Much of it has to deal with the fact that the two people in charge can't seem to run a restaurant. The decision they make stem from the wrong places, which are selfish places. I understand that they're tired, or whatever, but both of their decisions correlate directly to lessening their workload by micromanaging us. It sounds convoluted, but that's how I feel. It's casting the blame off of themselves by making us do the things that they don't want to do and don't want to take the blame for.
In terms of bad judgment calls, they fired someone today. This someone tends to work A LOT of shifts. This is, mind you, right before Inauguration, Restaurant Week and Valentine's day. Mind you, they've hired a friend of mine, but I fear that they're just going to throw her in there without any regard for her wants or needs. Their needs, as the managers, is becoming elevated over ours, and they don't seem to care. I miss being treated like a human.
* * *
In the artistic world, I'm working with a director who is very spiritual and very spacey. She also seems to forget who I am every time I come into the rehearsal room. I understand that I have a small roll, and that perhaps I don't get to work with her as much as the bigger roles, but it stings a little that she hasn't taken any time to get to know me or how I work. It makes me feel really unappreciated, honestly.
Then, when we finally get to a scene I'm actually in, that we've never blocked before, she basically states that: "It needs to really move, or I'll cut the hell out of this scene."
From the directorial standpoint, with a time crunch looming over us, it makes sense. However, we haven't really gotten a chance to work the scene. We'd run the lines before, without the main character, but this was the first time on its feet with complete actions. It didn't rock because we were feeling our way through it on our feet for the first time. Again, while I understand where she's coming from, it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Some of this stems from the fact that I, like in the last show I was in, would've done things very differently from casting to rehearsal to message. But I cast that aside, because my role is that of an actor, and I work for the director's vision. It's not resentment that she's not doing things the way I envisioned.
Now, because this is two shows in a row, I worry that it means that I'll never be able to work with a director whose process and visions I don't agree with. Or maybe it's because I have so little time required of me to learn lines, choreography, blocking, etc, that I have so much time to question and think. I never speak up, of course; it's not my place.
The show is fun, but like Six Characters in Search of an Author, I sense that it could be so much more than it is, and if my vision is correct, then the show will run in a manner that I expect it to, and I'll definitely feel that it could have been much, much better.
I re-read that, and it made me feel like I'm being very egotistical about it. I don't think this is coming from a place of ego, though. I'm not sure where it's coming from, yet. I'm not trying to say the show would be better if I directed it, but I feel, once again, that the director has some wonderful tools that she's neglecting for the sake of superfluous things.