I joined SDC to direct a production of Donald Margulies’s Dinner with Friends at the Alley Theatre in the spring of 2001. It was on the heels of the implosion of a national tour based on Daniel Sullivan’s direction of Dinner with Friends that I, as the Associate Director, was supposed to have put up. I got my first agent, who remains my agent to this day, because of the particulars of the tour that never happened. And when the Alley Theatre needed a director for that play, I was ready to step into casting immediately on what would have been the tour’s set. This was before the Enron scandal, let alone 9/11, and the Alley Theatre must have been flush. They needed a director fast, so they paid for my joining the Union. It was my first larger contract outside the world of assistant directing.
I got health insurance. I saw a dentist for the first time in several years. And year by year, I became more involved with SDC, first through negotiations with the League of
Resident Theatres (LORT). I will never forget seeing dawn break as we finalized that first collective bargaining agreement. The Law & Order “gung-gung” ringing in my ears when the lawyers had to caucus in a fancy room down the hall.
It was 2010. After much encouragement from then-Board Members Wendy C. Goldberg and Ethan McSweeny, then-President Pamela Berlin, and, of course, Executive Director Laura Penn, I first ran for an at-large position on the Board. I lost. I would run and lose another two times before finally getting elected in 2013. In that time, my career shifted from so many LORT contracts around the country to more work Off-Broadway and ultimately Broadway. I continued to be a back-bencher through difficult Off-Broadway and Broadway negotiations—and, more recently at the table, as Board President, sitting next to John Rando and Ruben Santiago-Hudson, co-chairs of our most recent week with LORT.
The Union gives me a sense of important belonging. It’s been a great pleasure to work with choreographers and directors—peers from different generations, paths, and aesthetics coming together for common causes. I’ve seen our Union grow and prioritize itself as a place for the field to converse about story, craft, politics, and economics, and be a place of joyous camaraderie. These are dangerous times in America and around the globe, but the Union is there for its Members, and we are healthfully growing and taking on what comes at us.
I encourage anyone at any stage in their career to get involved: be part of a negotiation; contact your Regional Representative; run for a seat on the Board; and use the resources, be they staff or the Manhattan office or an SDC mixer at a conference. I also encourage everyone to look at what SDC Foundation has to offer. Nominate your peers, sign up to be a possible Observer or to be observed. It’s so worth it, as artists and Union Members and Associates. We are stronger working together, sharing information and the love of this art form.
In Solidarity,
Pam MacKinnon
Executive Board President