The workers have been out in force in Scottish theatre of late. On stage, at least, there seems to have been a dramatic rediscovery of working class culture and blue-collar history.
This could be seen in the National Theatre of Scotland and Tron Theatre production of Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-In, Frances Poet's musical inspired by the v1981 strike in Greenock. Then there was Sweat, a co-production between the Citizens Theatre Glasgow and Royal Lyceum Edinburgh of Lynn Nottage's dramatisation of what happens to a small town when the industry that sustained it pulls out. Dundee Rep’s revival of Educating Rita, Willy Russell’s modern classic about a working-class hairdresser who enrols in an Open University literature course, is also indicative of a prevailing class divide.
Offstage, meanwhile, in a reflection of sorts of the themes of these plays, it is getting harder to sustain a career in theatre. This isn’t just the case for the actors who are the public face of Scotland’s homegrown scene. In a fragile industry, freelance technicians, directors, writers and others essential to making theatre happen are eking out a similarly precarious living.
With seemingly less money around to support theatre companies at all levels, rising infrastructure costs, low rates of pay, an irregular job market, and the sense that there is less work overall have left many scrambling to keep their heads above water. There is a sense from some practitioners that what funding there might be is being channelled in part into industry talking shops and what is perceived by some to be top-heavy layers of administration that would be put to better use in making work on stage.
There is a feeling too that those attempting to break into the theatre are in danger of being left out entirely. One recent drama graduate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is said to have described any future prospects stymied by them having “graduated into a graveyard.”
For actor Andy Clark, it was a different story when he first entered the business more than twenty-five years ago.
“I believe a career in the arts in Scotland is sustainable but very much depends on your circumstances,” says Clark, who has carved out a career working across pretty much every major Scottish theatre company, most recently at the Citizens Theatre in Linda McLean’s stage version of Denise Mina’s novel, The Long Drop.
“I come from a low wage household,” he says, “so when I started earning a regular wage as part of Dundee Rep Ensemble in 2000 I was earning nearly twice as much as my dad. I thought I’d won the lottery. Drew McFarlane from Equity was always telling us it was a ‘low wage economy’ and I never believed him. However, when I went freelance and was working far less, along with theatre wages stagnating relatively since then, I came round to Drew’s way of thinking fairly quickly.
“My circumstances were also very different. Young, single, low overheads and disposable income. It was much easier to sustain a career. Now, with a mortgage and two small children in a household where both parents are freelancers, it’s very different.”
Minimum payments for actors are based on agreements set down by the Independent Theatre Council (ITC) and actors’ trade union, Equity. Minimum weekly rate is £601, with various touring, commuting and living away allowances on top of this. At the top end, the Scottish Government-funded National Theatre of Scotland pay more, while A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Òran Mór in Glasgow pays slightly less.
In terms of touring, the rise of Airbnbs has affected the cheap digs circuit, while accommodation in London is higher than in other parts of the UK. Both can leave performers out of pocket. Bearing in mind as well that freelance contracts might only be for a few weeks at a time, and for those without any kind of financial safety net, what might initially look like a reasonable wage doesn’t seem quite as attractive.
But it’s not just actors who are affected by the current economic climate. As a long-standing production manager for theatre companies including Grid Iron and Vanishing Point, as well as Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, Fi Fraser brings decades of experience to her role. As she has written on her blog, however, for other companies trying to cut corners, this expertise isn’t always recognised in terms of payment.
“Paying someone to production manage a show with a twelve-week creation and rehearsal period but only compensating them for three isolated weeks of work overlooks the reality of how the role of a production manager works,” Fraser says. “Once a production manager is engaged and the contract is signed, the work doesn’t neatly switch on and off according to weekly rates, or even day rates. There’s a constant need to stay across communications, planning, logistics and problem solving throughout the entire process.
“Even if those three weeks are consecutive – which they in general aren’t,” she continues, “the mental load and ongoing responsibility continues over the full twelve weeks or length of the production, meaning it isn’t truly ‘three weeks of work’ but rather twelve weeks of accountability condensed into an inadequate pay structure. The job doesn’t exist in clean segments; it is continuous oversight, and the fee must relate and acknowledge that.”
Playwrights too are fighting to earn a living wage. With theatres having less money to play with, smaller cast shows mean less work for all. Gone are the glory days of large cast commissions going on extensive cross-country tours.
The first national survey of Scotland’s playwrights in five years was recently conducted jointly by the Scottish Society of Playwrights and Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland. The results due to be published this month found that average income from playwriting for professional writers is £6,001 per year. Whilst commissioning pay rates have increased, the survey found that creative earnings have stagnated.
Of those who responded, 35.7 per cent described themselves as working class. 35.7 per cent also declared themselves not to be working class. 21.4 per cent said they were previously working class, but weren’t anymore.
Thirty per cent of professional writers who responded to the survey received no income from commissions in the last financial year. The survey also found that the number of productions commissioned in Scotland has dropped in real terms from pre-Covid levels, with only 22.7 per cent of playwrights’ total earnings coming from commissioned work in the last financial year. Playwrights are increasingly seeking additional work outside of the theatre sector to be able to afford to live while continuing to write.
Arts grants and development bursaries are increasingly being sought to top up income deficit in the sector. “That’s critical from our perspective,” current Scottish Society of Playwrights chair Kris Haddow states. “The closure of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals in 2024 caused massive anxiety for freelancers, it was a relief when it was reinstated after mass campaigning. The survey highlights the fragility of income across the sector, and demonstrates the importance of arts funding in sustaining freelance careers outside of regular commissioning.”
While 21 per cent of playwrights’ earnings came from playwriting, 8 per cent came from associated activities, including dramaturgy and mentoring; and 11 per cent came from grants, bursaries and residencies related to playwriting.
As in a 2020/21 survey, however, the majority of playwrights’ income was derived from sources other than playwriting. A total of 60 per cent of all income reported in the survey came from employment outside playwriting.
This comprised 21 per cent from other arts employment, and 39 per cent from non-arts employment. While most respondents reported no income from non-creative PAYE employment, those who did generated a substantial proportion of total earnings reported through the survey. This highlights the difference between median and mean measures of income. The mean reflects the average value across all respondents and can be influenced by a relatively small number of high earners which explains the playwriting-specific income of £6,001.72 per annum.
The results of the survey have prompted a call by both the Scottish Society of Playwrights and Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland for a consultation on a Basic Income for Artists.
The current sense of insecurity in terms of employment in Scottish theatre is recognised by industry support body the Federation of Scottish Theatre.
“One thing I’d say at the outset,” FST chief executive Kenny McGlashan points out, “is that I think it’s important to look at what’s behind the challenges people experience making theatre and being able to stay in the industry. In many ways, people across the sector have spent years finding ways to keep making work despite increasingly difficult conditions. Instead, I think the question facing us now may be what happens when an ever-growing proportion of the effort required goes into overcoming those conditions rather than making, presenting and developing the work itself.
“Across conversations with theatre companies, venues, producers, directors, technicians, freelancers, audience specialists and funders, we’re hearing a remarkably consistent picture. Costs have risen significantly across almost every aspect of the sector, from staffing, accommodation and transport through to energy, materials, venue operations and touring. At the same time, many organisations and freelancers have worked incredibly hard to protect jobs, maintain activity, support audiences and improve areas such as fair work, access and sustainability.
“As a result, many people describe operating with less slack, less resilience and less capacity than they previously had. The work is still happening, but often through increased effort, partnership working, adaptation and personal commitment rather than because underlying conditions have improved.”
McGlashan points to a need for less fragmented evidence to tackle the problems he highlights.
“Whilst we have good insights from Scottish organisations, audiences and specific professions, building a more robust evidence base of the economics of working across Scottish theatre and the performing arts workforce is one of the medium-term ambitions of our advocacy and research work. Progress is being made, but it remains a broad and complex task.”
McGlashan highlights a series of across-the-board challenges.
- Increasing pressure on production budgets, rehearsal periods and touring models
- Reduced resilience across organisations of different scales
- Challenges around recruitment, retention and progression in technical, production and specialist roles
- Concerns about the long-term sustainability of freelance careers and creative livelihoods.
- Growing questions about who can afford to enter, remain and progress within the sector over time
“That last point feels particularly important,” he says. “The question isn’t simply whether an individual artist, technician, producer or director can get by this year. It’s whether talented people from a wide range of backgrounds can realistically build sustainable careers over ten, twenty or thirty years. That feels like a question with significant implications not just for the workforce, but for the diversity, sustainability and future of Scotland’s cultural life.”
This is borne out by those behind independent companies who employ freelancers as well as initiating their own projects. Both the Wonder Fools company, co-founded in 2017 by Jack Nurse and Robbie Gordon, and Raw Material, set up by Gillian Garrity and Margaret-Anne O’Donnell, have considerable successes under their belts.
Wonder Fools might be said to be the descendants of now long-lost shoestring companies that existed in the 1990s such as Raindog – co-founded by Robert Carlyle – and Wiseguise, which were run largely by working class actors and artists.
Wonder Fools’ recent successes include a touring revival of David Greig’s play The Events, and they are currently at work on a new collaboration with a company in South Korea.
“Scottish theatre has never lacked talent, ambition or audiences,” Nurse points out. “What it increasingly lacks is financial security. We’ve seen first-hand with Wonder Fools how transformative sustained investment can be, allowing us to improve pay, expand training and better support freelancers. But even with that support, independent companies continue to face rising costs across almost every aspect of making work. The challenge is that the insecurity of theatre careers sits on top of a sector where pay is often relatively low to begin with. For many freelancers, the risk is no longer balanced by the reward.”
Raw Material, meanwhile, have backed shows including Karine Polwart’s recent hit, Windblown. In partnership with London-based producers, Trafalgar, Raw Material also co-produced a 2025 production by Andy Arnold of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Miller’s twentieth century classic is a blue collar tragedy about working class hero Willy Loman, gradually squeezed out of his job and exhausted by the system he once believed in.
Arnold’s production put a mighty twelve Scottish actors on stage. Loman was played by David Hayman, the Glasgow-born actor whose career began in the 1970s at the Citizens Theatre, where he once described himself as the only working class actor in the company.
For independently run companies such as Wonder Fools and Raw Material, the financial risks of producing shows of all sizes are great.
“On a very basic level, the cost of everything in relation to staging a production has gone up,” Garrity and O’Donnell point out. “From materials to transport and the costs that are passed to us from the venues we visit. A key cost amongst this is the rising costs of employing freelance artists who are themselves facing higher living costs, while subsidy and potential to earn through ticket income continues to fall.
“As producers we are caught between the need to pay skilled freelancers appropriately and the reality of limited budgets and reducing audiences who are also facing cost of living pressures. Covid had a huge impact on our sector, and this combined with the increased cost of living means in real terms, wages have gone down, decimating financial buffers.
“More and more,” Garrity and O’Donnell continue, “producing is an exercise in juggling difficult choices, and these choices all have the potential to impact on the quality of the work and sustainability of the sector. This could be reduced number of productions, meaning reduced opportunities for freelance staff, or reduced length of contracts meaning more financial insecurity and lack of career progression. None of these things sit in isolation, but combined they mean we are increasingly having to adapt and diversify how we manage production budgets.”
For Nurse and Wonder Fools, despite becoming a Creative Scotland-funded organisation, similar challenges remain.
“For freelancers in particular, the challenge is that people are often only paid for the weeks they are contracted to rehearse or perform,” Nurse says. “The countless hours spent developing ideas, writing applications, networking, training, travelling and building a career are rarely recognised financially. What can appear to be a reasonable fee on paper often doesn’t translate into a sustainable annual income.
“The insecurity also sits on top of a sector where pay is often relatively modest, even for those in regular employment. Many people working in theatres, producing companies and arts organisations do so because they care deeply about the work, but passion can only compensate for so much. The challenge isn’t simply that work is insecure; it’s that the financial rewards often aren’t sufficient to offset that insecurity.”
As Scotland’s flagship company, the National Theatre of Scotland stresses the importance of freelancers beyond the organisation’s core staff of sixty.
“We are acutely aware of the ongoing challenges facing freelancers, being part of an industry facing multiple and ongoing crises, brought about by Covid, Brexit, inflation and the cost of living crisis and financial challenges within local council funding and the Scottish Government,” an NTS spokesperson said. “As a theatre organisation we acknowledge we can’t solve all these problems. What we can do is commit to paying all our freelancers fairly, honour our Fair Work obligations and our long-standing union agreements.
“NTS pays all freelancers and artists at a higher than the standard subsidised theatre rate. We also try and embed the needs of the freelance workforce in our planning, i.e., greater notice given of future contracts, and offering to support costs for caring responsibilities.”
NTS data indicates that 37 per cent of those who worked with them in 2024-2025 were freelancers. Fifty-five per cent of all the workforce identified as working class.
McGlashan, for one, remains optimistic about Scottish theatre’s future.
“From FST’s perspective, it’s also important that the story isn’t framed purely as one of decline,” he says. “Behind all of this there is a huge amount of innovation, collaboration and resilience across the sector. Organisations are sharing resources, developing new partnerships, finding different approaches to touring and audience engagement, and continuing to create extraordinary work.
“The challenge is that the sector’s capacity to respond is still catching up with the cumulative impact of many years of financial pressure, economic shocks and wider change. A great deal is already being done, but rebalancing those impacts is likely to require consistent attention, investment and partnership across many fronts over a sustained period.”
Nurse, however, sounds out a warning.
“My biggest concern is that we’re drifting towards a situation where only people with independent financial support can afford to stay in the industry long term,” he says. “If that happens, Scottish theatre won’t just lose artists, it’ll lose voices, perspectives and stories. The danger isn’t that people stop wanting to make theatre. The danger is that they simply can’t afford to.”
Comments