Have you ever met a successfully working theatre artist who faithfully refused to work on any day of the week due to regular religious observance - any faith?
If so, what were the circumstances and how did the employer deal with it?
What is the policy about this type of absence where you typically work?
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Theatre Workplace Research
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5 comments:
At YRT there was an orthodox Jewish carpenter. She left early on Fridays to be able to get home and observe the no-work-on-the-Sabbath thing. She also never, ever worked Saturday install calls.
The employer dealt with it a few days. When the shows could use it, she would come in early, stay late or work through lunch to put in the hours. Otherwise, she used vacation time a little bit at a time. The TDs for the individual shows just knew that this was how it was, and worked around it. No differently than Sparks does M&R on Mondays. It was just built into the schedules.
I also know that she successfully worked in a summer stock setting with this restriction. I'm not sure how it worked exactly, but the sun sets really late in the summer.
Whatever you are researching, I hope that this helps a bit, even though it isn't a theatre artist doing the performance/show schedule thing.
*few ways, not days... sorry
When I was employed at the Studio, the general manager was an Orthodox Jew, so he would also leave early on Fridays. All other Jewish holidays were not a problem, as they were considered "optional holidays." If you felt so inclined, you could not come in to work on those days, if you are Jewish, of course. If you weren't Jewish, you had these days stored up to use whenever, so it was pretty equitable. All of the upper management is Jewish there, so maybe this has some bearing on their policy. Any other religion I guess could have feasibly used their optional holdays to celebrate however they saw fit.
becca
Do hockey playoffs count?
we have quite a few jewish staff members, so we do take it in consideration when creating our organizational calendar... not so much the sabbath, but certainly all the holidays. the one time we ran into a significant issue was during Adrift in Macao when we ran into the fall jewish holidays during our tech period... the creators, producers, and our conductor/assistant musical director (who also played lead keyboard) couldn't work. we knew ahead of time, made allowances as best we could with breaks for people to go to temple and saders and such, and when we couldn't get around it, the music director sat in and conducted/played the rehearsal. it's all just another consideration to account for when making a calendar.
- lindsay
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