I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, so congratulations for making it that far, I suppose. But no congratulations for the tone in which this article was written. It's almost impossible to respond thoughtfully to what you say because of the pompous, presumptuous way in which you say it. No bullshit is one thing. Condescending and simplistic is another.

There are, however, good points hidden in here. I appreciate the attention paid to creating a more communal, participatory, anti-reverential style of theater. Where alcohol is concerned, well, sure, I like it as much as the next girl, but ideally, I would like theatre to stand on its own, to inspire conversation and community, even when the audience is, well, sober.

Yes, there are good points. There are also bad ones. Though I only wish to address one of those: No more Shakespeare (for five years, five months, whatever)? Really? The #1 idea you can think of to revitalize our "drowning" theaters is to outlaw the performance of one of the greatest writers for the stage that's ever lived?

Shakespeare is not the problem. Mediocre performances of Shakespeare are the problem. Sure, I've seen some shitty Shakespeare in my time, but I've also seen some shitty new work and some Shakespeare that will remain with me for the rest of my life. Don't tell us what to perform and what not to perform -- just encourage us to do it WELL. Original work, Shakespeare, classics, moderns, experimental performance art -- none of these is the problem OR the solution in itself. How it's done is what will make the difference. We, as theater artists, have a responsibility to be as critical of ourselves as I have been of this article -- as rigorous with ourselves as we can be. We must not limit the What of our work, but set the highest possible expectations for the How and the Why.

Thanks for reading, if you still are,
--Sara, from Charlottesville

Based on the defensive comments from theatre folk here, Seattle theatre is doomed. As an infrequent and frustrated theatre-goer, good-riddance. I'll go to Vancouver for my twice annual theatre fix. Brendan nailed it, but you ignored him. Dumbshits.

A lot of what you say is valid and would be great if it happened. I live in London and the subsidized theatres there are DESTINATIONS for meeting friends and hanging out and drinking. The National, TheYoung Vic, The Royal Court, The Almieda, Hampstead etc. and you know who drinks the most? Young People ! And a lot of them put down their drinks and go into the theatre and see something - sometimes its great, sometimes its crap but they watch it - and when it's over the come out of the theatre and drink more ( adding to the theatres coffers) and TALK ABOUT THE PLAY. But those theatres are user friendly, there aren't a lot of conveyance charges, and restoration charges and service fees. You go their websites and you buy tickets and you see your locations and they are welcoming. Theatres in the US tend to make it all traumatic and as if they are doing you a favor by selling you a ticket. The theatregoing experience begins with the purchase of the ticket and US theatres have forgotten that.

No-one should expect poverty. Everyone deserves to earn a living wage, in the theater or out of it.

I would stand to argue that no one should expect a living wage either, especially in the hand to mouth world of theatre where audiences are rarely guaranteed.

It'd be nice if we could all make a living wage to do theatre. And it'd be nice if we all had ponies too. It'd be nice if arts money and well-funded patrons fell like manna from the sky and everyone could afford to make their living doing theatre.

And then there is reality, where the only way that can be a reality is if every house charged $50-100 a head, still got dozens or even hundreds of patrons a night to pay that price, and watched their finances to the dime. The amount of money it takes to pay everyone a living wage every single week, every single month, is relatively infathomable to all but the big houses even if your troupe's doing remarkably well.

In other words, the notion of everyone in theatre making a living at it is a pipe dream. In fact, I'd even argue the notion of the top quarter of thespians making a living at it is a pipe. I'd have to argue that no one in general deserves a living wage, let alone no one in theatre. You certainly are entitled to take the steps to try and earn one, but the willingness to work in itself doesn't certify you the right to have what you want.

Who deserves and doesn't deserve what is a matter of subjective opinion that can vary from person to person in general, anyway. I can argue that we deserve the right to free speech, the right to pursue what we want in our lives, the right to feed ourselves and get a job if need be... but no one deserves, no one ought to be entitled, to anything in the theatre. That attitude of entitlement in large part is why theatre has culturally stagnated over the last 40 years. Art is borne out of a sense of urgency, and there is no urgency in entitement, a sense borne out of the need for comfort.

No one in theatre should expect poverty. Which is why everyone in theatre should invest effort in building a workable career outside of theatre just in case Broadway and/or Hollywood never come calling, and just in case you never land that livable stream of AEA income with the big houses in town.

I'm a successful actor/director/producer in Minneapolis. Re point 1 -- Shakespeare often is among the best-selling (if not THE best selling) show in a theatre's season! Toss that, and toss half your audience base. Point 2 following on its heels also can be death to a theatre company -- ALL premiers?? C'mon! Unfortunately, new works don't pull audience in as well as recognizable titles (even in a "new works" area like Mpls/St. Paul. Companies need to have a mix, unless new works is your niche. And then, you'd better have some good backing or a damn cheap space in which to produce. Point 7: the biggest barrier is insurance costs!! When you serve alcohol, even for one night, the insurance premium is HUGE! And ignore the laws? Bad advice. I think not. Point 9: "Nobody deserves a living wage for having talent and a mountain of grad-school debt." Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? Astro-physicists? College and university professors? They don't deserve a living wage? Really? Then who does? Or does Kiley really think that only artists aren't worth their due. SCREW YOU! Point 10: Graduate school is about networking, plain and simple. I can't tell you how many places I work where half to company knows each other from grad school. And these are folks who have been in the business for years (some for decades). Sure, you can gain the networking by working professionally, but that's AFTER you get your foot in the door and primarily on a local scale. For work nationally, many people get their first work at a company through relationships gained through schooling. It gives you a HUGE leg up! Points 4, 5 and 6 are very well taken and worth heeding. I especially love the childcare idea, if a theatre has the space to do it. And point 6 is a very astute observation and one that can really make a difference, not only for the artistic community, but for the city as a whole.

I do like some of these ideas. Sadly some of these sound rather high-minded and not entirely thought through.

From what I have read I mainly have one response. You clearly have not worked in professional theatre or the entertainment business... or maybe you did and where bad at it. My undergrad professors all had long lists of achievements and still currently work on high profile endeavors. I have run into very few has-beens. I also went there to learn from them and well... I find if someone has been doing something for 40 years they probably know a thing or two. People with degrees in Theatre are doing far better than the business majors who currently fill our Starbucks orders.

Also I have seen shows produced with no money and no time and a short run to boot. It does not go over well. When I go see a show that is performed by Equity actors and has well trained stagehands then the quality tends to be higher. When the show has all of it's lines and no feedback and lighting that isn't just on and off with no color... I can enjoy the show.

As for new works. I love them, I wish it was all I could do as a designer or technician. Sadly there are very few theatres that I know of that do well just doing new works... actually please post one... just one that can afford to pay the electric bill... and I may reconsider. People like to see the same garbage. How many movies have the same plot? How many pop songs are repetitive? People actually tend to dislike the unfamiliar.

Looking for ways to improve the theatre is great. Claiming things like unions, education, and plays that everyone loves seeing (take a child to see Peter Pan done by a good company and tell me some classics aren't worth doing)does not seem like you are thinking it all through.

Sincerly,
Makes a damn good living with talent and quickly disappearing debt.

Hahahaha! Funniest thing I have read in a while. So theater artists should not expect to get paid enough to live AND provide child care to their audiences! OMFG. Sure, communities in the USA vastly under value and under support the arts, and new plays and younger audiences are vital to a vibrant theater. But this, for want of a better word, rant is either provacative for it's own sake or belies a level of ignorance about the professional theater that undermines its credibility. But it gave me a good belly laugh. Call it Whining for Guffman! "Corky St. Clair: What the city council did was really... give me a challenge, and it's a challenge that I am going to... accept. It's like in the olden days, in the... days of France, when men would slap each other with their gloves... say, y'know... "D'Artagnan!"... y'know, "how dare you talk to me like that, you!," and... smack 'em! "

It has literally been years since I've looked at The Stranger, and to come upon this so randomly through a Facebook post is amazing. This takes me back. I lived in Seattle in the early 90s and one of the best theater experiences I ever had was "The Fatty Arbuckle Spookhouse Review" by Chris Jeffries, right there on the Annex's stage. I remember meeting Erik Ehn then too, and I remember New City Theater and workshops with Irene Fornes among others. And yes! Drop out of MFA programs! Can I get a witness? The student loan debt - it's enough to make a person write serial manifestos!

You had me until the graduate school comment.

I'm not saying I think people should go to graduate school. I am saying that I don't think it's anyone else's place to say wether another person should go to graduate school. There are as many reasons to go and many reason not to.

Referring to the comment above about meeting Erik Ehn, who went to graduate school. If you wanted to work directly with him now you're best chance would be graduate school at Brown. 5 years ago? Graduate School at CalArts.

I don't think Erik is a has been. There is a lot of faculty at a lot of schools that aren't. There are a lot of graduate programs worth enrolling in if you've got a reason that makes sense.

That being said there are a lot of crap programs with faculty who are not working much. There are definitely too many people going to graduate school and too many programs out there to meet the unnecessary demand. It's a boated market.

I went to graduate school, and I believe it was the right decision for me. My time spent there HAS led to me being more profitable, financially and artistically. And at all times i was out in the world, making theater on and off the campus. I didn't crawl under a rock and study for 3 years to emerge out of some debt cocoon. And no I didn't have anyone supporting me.

It's also worthwhile to point out that a number of colleges and graduate schools, because their mission is education and supporting experimentation and field advancement, are the presenters, producers and sources of funding for a lot of new work and the artists making new work.

Everything else, I'm with you all the way. But, this generalization that no one or everyone should go to graduate, or do anything really, is lazy thinking.

will - Oh YES you do have to pay royalties to Samuel French or any other royalty company regardless of being and educational program or having a small house. My 200 seat middle and high school theatre program pays royalties like anyone else - as a matter of fact our Samuel French show just closed (to the tune of $1,200 bucks in royalties for a $5.00 ticket price in a very small house.) I've paid them on all (over) 100 shows I've produced in educational theatre settings. I don't know what schools you are dealing with, but if they aren't paying royalties (other than for public domain works) then they are breaking the law.

You are one crazy ass bastard. And I LOVE everything you've proposed! Theatre companies: post this--like Martin Luther!

I would add a #11. Get grade school, middle school and high school students in to see a play! If we don't develop a new generation of theater goers, we are truly doomed.

Great work, Brendan!

The main point is alcohol. Alcohol, oh and how about cigarettes? The theater has always been the home of Dionysus. In fact the theater is a giant bar. If you get drunk enough you will enjoy anything. The theater is a den of alcoholism. The problem is that alcoholics are unreliable egoists who all stab each other in the back, steal ideas from each other, and drown themselves in cycles of self importance then self hatred. It is hard to get out of the theater. My advice is, if you are really good looking and can seduce a lot of people, you can join a union and get a lot of money on TV, which is for high class whores. You will convince yourself that its about talent and you will have tons of money so you can treat people terribly in revenge for how you were treated in live theater (while drunk). The live theater is hard to do today because it is dead. God died at the turn of the last century. Theater is Dead. It's dead. Why not just go to a place that actually says "bar" so everyone is not fooled that you are just a bunch of lousy alcoholics. You can pay them for the actual service: alcohol. Thanks!

Mullin: Actors Equity Members Project Code exists to allow union actors and writers and other professionals work on full productions in cities like Seattle every day, without benefit of union contracts (as long as no one gets paid). You can work with your friends in Seattle as often as you like. Research it.

Many of these ideas are terrible, but the passion with which you write them more than makes up for their lack of merit. Bravo.

A lot of good points were brought up here in the main article and in the comments so I'll leave the line by line response out of my comment.

What I'd like to address is the oversight on the part of the writer to acknowledge that there are other options to help make theatre more viable. We can't just lower our standards of pay and raise our standards of product and then do all the same stuff we've been doing for hundreds of years . Audience participation has always been a part of the theatre... (even in Shakespeare) that's not a new idea. And it certainly wont save the theatre. The fact is the theatre is wasteful industry. Notice nowhere are ideas of creating effective systems to address the issues theatres face ever presented.

I think it is important to rethink the kind of art we make - yes, I agree. But, I think we need to work to be more relevant - a new piece about the plight of the working man may be effective for one community, but can we really discredit the power of Death of Salesman. Miller's acute diagnosis of the symptoms of being a worker veiled in the illusions of the American Dream may never be topped. It is our job to know which is going to find more draw in a particular community - in other words, we have to connect to the zeitgeist.

It is imperative to rethink HOW we make our work - no, I do not mean our artistic process. I mean the tools and instruments of our trade... it kills us. And until we sort out those issues we will be rearranging the same old stuff calling it more effective - all the while just maintaining the status quo.

You can look at the color pink and call it brown... and no matter how you yell about it, no matter how many people agree with you, no matter what you do, outside of actually changing the color in front of you into brown - it will always be pink.

All this said - you know your community better than I do - so if you really think the ideas you have proposed will make a difference - I'm all for that. But - maybe - just maybe you might admit that you're angry, unsettled and dissatisfied and that your manifesto for change is really just an idealization of how you want to do theatre by changing very little about how you currently do it.

I'd love to read an update, 4 years later about whether Brendan still agrees with these 10 points. How have things changed in Seattle theatre since 2008?

More often than not one simply must have an MFA to even get looked at by an reputable company. I'm not an artist to make a living; it is my life. With that said, my plan to attend graduate school came from hundreds of applications being rejected solely because I was 'qualified in hands-on experience' but didn't have an MFA.

I don't think stopping the pursuit of education is the proper way to feed our starving theatres. Spend a few months abroad. Governments support art in a way that makes the people support art. I think if our country recognized how critical art is in our lives, people would be more apt to go to the theatre on a Friday night than staying in, watching the Kardashians, and binging on junk food.

That's all.

I used to work with the comedienne-guitarist Charo, the Spanish lady with the fractured English. She used to say: " A lot of people get me meexed up with William Chakespeare (sic) because no one know what the 'ell either one of us is talking about.....

You have some great, innovative ideas. BUT:

Since when does leaving at intermission earn someone a free drink? It's the ultimate faux pas. If you want to peace out at intermission, you can go home. Having someone in the lobby after the show tipsily discussing why they left the performance early isn't going to help build audiences or community. And a free drink will just encourage people to leave at inermission MORE.

Secondly, it is very clear that you are not now, nor ever have been a working actor. It is very easy (VERY easy) to get your new work under an Equity Showcase Code, which stipulates that the union actors in the production must be paid a whopping... anything more than the non union actors. One dollar will do it. So will a metro card. Come to New York: it's how our fringe festivals work, and why we have more of them. There are hundreds and hundreds of new works performed under showcase codes every year.

And your'e right, no one deserves a living wage simply for being talented and educated. But EVERYONE deserves a living wage for work performed. Including those who perform work that can ONLY be performed by someone talented and educated. That right is equal across all industries, unionized or not. Even in freelance journalism.

Jessica (a working actor)

You have some great, innovative ideas. BUT:

Since when does leaving at intermission earn someone a free drink? It's the ultimate faux pas. If you want to peace out at intermission, you can go home. Having someone in the lobby after the show tipsily discussing why they left the performance early isn't going to help build audiences or community. And a free drink will just encourage people to leave at inermission MORE.

Secondly, it is very clear that you are not now, nor ever have been a working actor. It is very easy (VERY easy) to get your new work under an Equity Showcase Code, which stipulates that the union actors in the production must be paid a whopping... anything more than the non union actors. One dollar will do it. So will a metro card. Come to New York: it's how our fringe festivals work, and why we have more of them. There are hundreds and hundreds of new works performed under showcase codes every year.

And your'e right, no one deserves a living wage simply for being talented and educated. But EVERYONE deserves a living wage for work performed. Including those who perform work that can ONLY be performed by someone talented and educated. That right is equal across all industries, unionized or not. Even in freelance journalism.

Jessica (a working actor)

EVERYONE deserves a living wage, period.

Unions are the reason why most working people, including artists, have a LIVING WAGE, as opposed to a so-called minimum wage which in fact is code for poverty/starvation wage.

I like a lot of your ideas, but how can you possibly write about success & survival of theater companies, yet twice in the article bash the idea of actors making money at it?
The union is not the problem. The problem is people who think actors should donate their skill & time to other people who are making money off of them.

Actors Equity gives many concessions to small theaters & in-development shows. In fact, probably too many, as is illustrated by the current uproar about National Tour salaries.

You said "Nobody deserves a living wage for having talent and a mountain of grad-school debt.". Really? So that doctor & lawyer & writer & teacher should all just be doing what they are trained to do & not expect a living wage? Do it for the love?
Try going to get your oil changed for free, just because someone loves working on cars.

I think the real problem in the arts is people who devalue the people onstage & expect that anyone who wants to perform should accept some sort of clergylike vow of poverty just for the privilege of entertaining an audience.

Pay your performers. Then you will have performances onstage from people who are not there because it is a hobby.
You'll have better shows because of THAT, and will subsequently have a better box office.

It's a pretty clear business model, no matter what industry: better product = better sales.
Your actors ARE the show. Put your focus on that, because that's all your ticket buyers are focused on when they arrive.
Add the gimmicks like a bar or babysitters later.

Then again what do I know... I only did my first of many shows on Broadway 20yrs ago, am currently on a National Tour, have been part of developing several known shows on Broadway, AND have worked in all levels of regional theater across the country through the course of my career.
Maybe I'm wrong in thinking the actors are important & worth your dollar.

Holy - people are STILL kvetching over this article more than FIVE YEARS later?

PS doing Shakespeare onstage is the true test of any actor.

i have a point that's not related directly to the story - but it is related. playwrights need to stop giving their product away. i understand they want to have their play produced. but the royalties for plays are abysmal. i met a writer in Los Angeles who had a recent production of his play. he received the SAME royalty that he was paid during the world premiere production of that same play...30 years earlier. yes - in bigger venues you have some room to/options to negotiate the royalty and % of the box office. but comparatively, that's a small number of venues. why would i want my play to be produced at Theater ABC in Milwaukee for....$40 royalty per night/show when the theater is bringing in $1,500 per night on ticket sales? how equitable is that? not every playwright can produce their own work (which is ideal).

Perhaps you have some good points but your #1 makes me think they happened by accident.

1. Might better read with enough with the semi-literate, slothfully-executed Shakespeare.
2. Audiences don't buy "what they don't know." They buy something they do and then walk out with something they didn't. Finding really good hooks is what many theatres suck at.
3. Producing dirty and fast is more expensive than it looks.
4. Yeah great, discounts for everybody.
5. Child care. With volunteer sitters? Oh - no you mean pay the sitters not the artists. In a place that serves alcohol. For 1% of your audience. Ok great WHAT.
6. Who's gonna do that? Oh right the nouveau riche.
7. Yeah no liability issues there.
8. You think audiences need encouragement to be obnoxious and quite enjoy themselves doing it?
9. Replace "actors" [everyone else in a theatre deserves a living wage, just not actors?] with any number of talent-requiring professions that are just as arguably necessary to society on more levels and, quite frankly, gfy. Actors not getting paid means a)their health falls apart or b)they can't afford to rehearse, which means, hooray, people paying full ticket prices for profoundly amateur awfulness!
10. Theatre might not make money, but acting programs draw in the bucks without fail. Some of them are compelled to choose half a class every year who might get work someday, and pad it with another half eager to pay to fail. Doesn't exactly encourage high teaching standards across the board. So just as many people don't learn to make theatre doing a diploma or undergrad as do. Which sends people back to do, you guessed it, an MFA once reality sets in. Or, they quit. All training is extremely buyer-beware.

Before you completely dismiss grad schools, know two things:

1) Anyone who is a successful artist and wants the stability that a salary and retirement plan offer once they get out of their 20s *needs* to go to grad school. It's the only path to getting paid to teach your art.

2) There are *plenty* of worthwhile grad programs out there working on new and devised works, cutting-edge technology, and exciting movements. The tenth item on your list is lazy, because anyone who knows how to do research could look up a few and be impressed.

(That being said, I'm all for recommending that theatre artists tour when they're younger, be dangerous when they're younger, and save grad school for later on if at all. But I won't and can't dismiss it for all of us.)

Before you completely dismiss grad schools, know two things:

1) Anyone who is a successful artist and wants the stability that a salary and retirement plan offer once they get out of their 20s *needs* to go to grad school. It's the only path to getting paid to teach your art.

2) There are *plenty* of worthwhile grad programs out there working on new and devised works, cutting-edge technology, and exciting movements. The tenth item on your list is lazy, because anyone who knows how to do research could look up a few and be impressed.

(That being said, I'm all for recommending that theatre artists tour when they're younger, be dangerous when they're younger, and save grad school for later on if at all. But I won't and can't dismiss it for all of us.)

Dumping Shakespeare is a terrible idea. People like Shakespeare, people want to see Shakespeare, people are willing to pay to see Shakespeare and will pay to drag their kids to Shakespeare. Given that Shakespeare is so reliably popular with theater audiences, why the fuck would anyone drop Shakespeare?

Seems to me that the first two suggestions aren't about trying to save theater, it's about making theater conform more to your personal taste, which favors novelty. Well, not everyone shares your taste and you should get used to that and suck it up.

I think the reason theater audiences prefer the old to the new is because theater itself is an archaic medium. People go to the theater in lieu of turning on the TV or going to the movies or surfing YouTube because they are looking for a classic experience, something that connects them to the past, to share something with people who lived decades or centuries or millennia ago. When people want novelty they turn to the newer media.

Didn't we already do one Shitstorm at The Rep, based on this article?

ss

Sorry Brendan. I forced myself to get past your utterly pretentious (and inaccurate) headline to scan some of your ideas and they seem to be that of someone rather young and limited in perspective.

Theatre doesn't need "saving". It has existed and thrived for as long as human beings have existed and it has adapted itself to every age and generation.

Apparently you cannot imagine "theater" as being anything other than Shakespeare and mainstream institutions and dedicated stages for "old" people. It isn't. "Theater" is a performance experience, which means it's YouTube and movies and Netflix series and sidewalk improv and more.

And it's doing quite well.

The problem isn't theater; it's people's narrow definition of theater that's the problem.

Once again, we have the argument that actors shouldn't be paid for our work, we should do it for the love. But if we are rehearsing 8 hours a day, 6 days a week (then going home and spending another 3, 4 hours on our "homework," (which we DO), then doing 8 shows a week,that is a full-time job.
(You COULD go with the 99-Seat model they have in L.A. But then you cannot fine an actor for tardiness, or prevent him/her from taking another, better-paying job, even on opening night.)
You say actors don't deserve to be paid simply based on talent. But isn't that why anyone, anywhere, in any profession, is hired? Nepotism aside, aren't most employees brought on board because of their ability to do the job? That ability comes from experience and, yes, education. Many people, in many professions, enjoy their jobs. Does that mean THEY shouldn't get paid? Is hating your job a prerequisite for compensation? And would you ask the directors, designers, playwrights, stage managers, administrators, and artistic directors to work for free (or very little money?) Sure, you could get a bunch of inexperienced, bad actors, but your shows are going to tank.
The fact is, 98% of actors are not working at an acting job at any given time. The majority of us work other jobs between (and often in conjunction with) acting gigs. Is it REALLY too much to ask that we get paid when we are giving you our time, energy, and resources? We are doing a JOB, and, yes, we DESERVE to be paid for doing that JOB.

It would also be very helpful if the theatres were not dependent on the success of the plays for survival, i.e., if they were dinner theatres or coffeehouse theatres which made their living selling food and drink. Audiences which would not go near a play will drop by for dinner and watch a show if there is one. In my particular environment, Los Angeles, the most sensible thing a theater could do would be to have free onsite parking. People would come no matter what the show if they saw a sign reading, "FREE PARKING THEATRE."

Representation by unions is the only way anyone has any chance of making even close to an adult living doing theatre. Without unions you can kiss goodbye to any kind of diversity in the theatre, because the only people who will be able to afford to do it will be upper class kids who have family money to lean on. Is Actor's Equity ruining LORT theatre by having minimums of $400/week and requiring theatres to pay meager benefits? What incentive would there be for anyone to go into theatre if they knew it meant living in poverty?



All a union is is a collective bargaining unit where workers/artists can come together to have some leverage over how they are treated and paid. Without collective action there is no way for anyone to have any kind of sustained adult life in the theatre. The unions are the only reason why we have regional theatre at all- without some promise of pay and benefits, we would be left with community theatre and Broadway- there would be no in between.



Theatres enter into agreements with unions- they are not forced into contracts they can't afford. It's a two-way street. You have bought into the anti-union rhetoric paid for by the Koch brothers.

You also have your head in the sand about how theatres are funded. You refer to all the great work that was done by theatres back in the 80's. This was back when there actually was public funding of the arts and individuals and groups could actually rely on some government support to fund their art and programming. As a theatre artist just starting out in the late 80's I was able to get grants from the NEA and my state arts council which helped me launch a career. Money for individual artists has been eliminated and public funding for arts groups in most cities has shrunk tenfold since the 80's. Theatres have to get money somewhere- it doesn't just grow on trees. Even if you don't think artists should get paid you have to keep the lights on somehow.