Fee Philosophy

For almost 30 years, myself and my theater company, The Curious Theatre Branch, have worked within a suggested donation or “pay-what-you-can” ticket price.  I have always offered pwyc in all my non-institutional teaching and facilitation practice too. 

When I first started doing things that I charged an admission to experience, there was no money in the scene or in my pockets.  My compatriots and I always felt like pwyc was inherently practical; if we charged a set fee, it was possible folks would not come because they didn’t have money either.  So if we offered that you could “pay-what-you-can”, money wouldn’t be the reason you didn’t come.  Over time, it has worked itself out.  Nobody has gotten rich off the creativity of The Curious Theatre Branch or Jenny Magnus.  But we are still doing stuff, 35 years in, still making things and centering our lives around art and creativity. 

I am committed to the ideas of mutual aid, artistic community, and non-commercial entrepreneurial endeavors that are sustainable.  I am also committed to the idea that I will be paid for my expertise and labor, and that a proportionate, ethical exchange of money for time is possible.  I am practicing asking for, accounting for, and negotiating for payment in my art life as well as my teaching/facilitation life.  I am trying to unlearn internalized capitalism and all its harsh judgements.  This is a life-long exercise, because I have been very fucked up by ideas about money and worth.  But I am determined to continue working and to become freer than I have been.