Theater artist as a laboratory of the new economy of work

Irregular alarm clock ringing. Socio-critical podcast instead of breakfast. Vibration of a private mobile phone with work groups. Endless negotiations between grants, exams, guest appearances, and other employers. Evening unpaid visit to a "competitor" theater performance, because even cultural networking has meanwhile become a form of invisible labor. The illusion of predictability, integrity, or sustainable boundaries between work and private life has not dissolved but has been simmered into a thick broth, in which deadlines, Excel spreadsheets, artistic ambitions, and chronic fatigue float. I am a multitasker, diplomat, nomad, and officer. I am a theater artist since 2000 to the present. How did we get here?

In the first part of the trilogy on working conditions in theaters, I reflected on the role of trade unions and their missed opportunity to improve collective bargaining after the turn of the millennium. I showed that since 2000, union membership in theaters has been declining annually, while the number of workers on agreements, sole proprietorships, or project contracts has continuously increased. The current cultural crisis has also revealed something even more unpleasant: the theater environment today cannot effectively mobilize – and words like "networking" or "associating" often only mask the absence of real collective power.

Moreover, it seems that theater has also lost the ability to imagine a reduction of those work practices that further deepen precariousness. Frustration is growing, but the system remains untouched. Therefore, in this part, I will examine how the very understanding of work in theater has changed since 1989 and why the ideal of freedom has turned into a mechanism of self-exhaustion.

Reincarnation of the genius

When Immanuel Kant in Critique of Judgment (1790) sent the artist-genius to the corner of society and made him a slapstick outsider, this idea was not yet so dominant. Artists in the second half of the 18th century in most European states had almost no labor rights or social security. However, Kant introduced a moral imperative into this precarious status. If an artist wants to be a true Genius and not just an ordinary craftsman, he – endowed with "originality, talent, wit, and spirit" – must create works that are not repetitions of what has already been made. According to Kant, the artist-genius is an extraterrestrial compared to the rest of the population, who, in the name of high art, must avoid ordinary life to prevent falling into mediocrity and becoming a craftsman.

Kant's vision of ideal art influenced not only the approaching Romanticism but exploded fully in modernism and subsequent realism. Not coincidentally, this paradigm shift gave rise to the Genius-director, a being endowed with highly subjective aesthetic judgment but with the claim to universal validity of his or her judgment. A demiurge who sacrifices everything for grand theater: his own time, health, interpersonal relationships, and people around him.

Trade unions tried to correct this emancipation of art. They introduced recreations, jubilees bonuses, Christmas bonuses, expanded OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) clauses in contracts, or monitored the maximum hours spent on rehearsals. They did not advocate for work in theaters to be enjoyable and fulfilling but to earn more money under better material conditions and have more time to spend it. Philosophically, theater was thus perceived anti-Kantian: not as a caste of exceptional geniuses but as a profession.

After 1989, the struggle for decent working conditions in theater is fought precisely on the minefield of Genius vs. Craftsman. Unions squandered their historical role; the discourse on work was taken over by the reincarnated ethos of Kant's Genius, which now combined the modernist definition of "originality" with creative neoliberalism focused on the individual and the hegemony of "potential." Theater artists were to become extraterrestrials and leave the planet of certainties, social security, stable employment, and official structures. As the experimental director Peter Scherhaufer noted: "Any pre-guaranteed security (including economic) leads to comfort, and that is the death of art. Moreover, the artist should always be in opposition to the ruling order, which will never be so 'orderly' that it does not need opposition. (...) Therefore, proper funding should neither spoil nor bind the hands. It should stimulate all parts of theater to raise their demands on themselves." Our definition of work has been contaminated by existential slogans about actively shaping one's own life (performativism), and from experimentation, autonomy, freedom, or overcoming comfort zones, slogans of human resource management and a new labor law model have emerged. The Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han aptly named this transformation: "The theater is a place of display, the market is a place of exhibition (of oneself). Therefore, today, theatrical display releases space for pornographic exhibition (of oneself) for admiration."1

Soft (s)kills and securing joy in non-joyful conditions

Slovak theater is not on the sidelines of this trend but exemplifies artistic work under neoliberal capitalism. Paradoxically, theater in Slovakia – which after the Velvet Revolution sought to free itself from official structures – at the turn of the millennium accepted alternative anti-models of working conditions, which are now increasingly significant parts of mainstream corporate language, against which, ironically, original critics of work sought to define themselves. Not only independent performers but also bankers, IT specialists, or developers, after 2000, adopt rules of flexibility, potential for personal growth, and multitasking that the labor market begins to demand.2 Here, Foucault's analysis of power strongly resonates. Contemporary power is exercised not primarily through prohibitions but through motivation, flexibility, and voluntary discipline. A theater artist must realize their potential, create contacts, travel, and maintain visibility, be part of festival networks, and produce new proposals.

Slovenian philosopher Bojana Kunst, in her book Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism, questions the romantic image of Kant's Genius standing outside economic or social relations and argues the opposite: today, the artist is the prototype of the contemporary worker. Creativity, flexibility, mobility, communicativeness, and the ability for constant self-transformation – all these qualities, which in the 1990s in our region were associated with free-thinking theater like Stoka or avant-garde DISK, have become fundamental demands of the labor market. Capitalism no longer only produces goods; it produces types of personalities, and the theater artist is the laboratory of this new economy of work.

The development of "language of work" as a performative tool legitimizing work relations, power structures, and economic determinants can also be traced in formulations in work regulations for various (not only) theater positions. While in the 1990s, an administrative-labor law style dominated, since 2000, advertisements are framed by emotional motivation and collective identity. They target aspects of work that theater has adopted as a crucial part of self-identification. The importance of soft skills is increasing, and phrases like "inspirational environment," "friendly team," "meaningful activity," or "higher purpose" displace explicit material working conditions. This paradigm shift significantly contributes to the fact that structural precarity has been difficult to recognize as a systemic, neoliberal phenomenon over the past two decades, transcending individual decisions and affecting society as a whole. Theater workers thus function as a symptomatic example of how voluntarily accepted life strategies and work regimes – along with discourses of freedom and autonomy that legitimize them – are compatible with ongoing political and economic reorganization.

The glamour and poverty of WhatsApp groups

The new millennium in Slovak theater is also characterized by another transformative phenomenon: the theater space is filled with artists working in free professions. As theater scholar Elena Knopová points out, "theaters are beginning to prefer functioning similar to project-based work. The repertoire of the first decade of 2000 is shaped under the influence of offers from guest directors, who bring their dramaturgs into the theater, sometimes without knowledge of broader contexts and without ambitions for long-term work with the ensemble and audience." 3 At first glance, such diversification of creation and cooperation between institutionalized and non-institutionalized scenes may not necessarily imply significant pitfalls. However, in the context of our topic, they accelerate psychosocial risks, which have multiplied with the shift of the diktat of flexibility behind monitors and smartphone screens. While regular theater employment is still formally governed by the Labor Code and (relatively) regular working hours, external cooperation works impulsively, sporadically, and often combines multiple projects or commitments simultaneously. It is therefore not uncommon that while an employed actor finishes a rehearsal at 2:00 p.m., an external director calls with new comments on the role at 9:00 p.m. The production manager responds to messages during vacation. The dramaturg writes a grant from the waiting room at the doctor. Technical staff sleep in their car after a festival because the next day they travel to another production, and this time is not counted as working hours. Production teams usually create WhatsApp groups where they keep the entire participation in a state of constant alertness, functioning as a kind of Orwellian tool of continuous control. A director wants to share new literature for actors and actresses to read during rehearsals, so they send a message on WhatsApp on Sunday morning. Two weeks before the festival, the theater's organizing team begins to send work messages uncontrollably (often in panic and stress from the workload) at any time of day or night.

Digitalization of internal processes creates hard-to-identify overtime; work is subjected to enormous psychological strain. For example, in Poland, in 2024, a comprehensive study by the Creative Economy Research Center at the University of Social and Human Sciences in Warsaw analyzed the socio-economic situation across cultural professions on a sample of 16,000 respondents. The study revealed the phenomenon of multi-qualification (the average artist in Poland holds 2.95 jobs) and that up to 47.8 percent of respondents experience burnout syndrome, and 36.7 percent perform unpaid work as part of building their personal brand.4

Let's say no to love

To reassure the reader, I also love my work, and those who find higher meaning or fulfillment of personal potential in it are happy. However, American journalist Sarah Jaffe, in her book Work Won't Love You Back (2021), warns that love for work is a modern tool of capitalist exploitation. When it becomes prominent in the discourse—how we think about work and working conditions and legitimize responsibility for our own existence through repeated narratives like "you must love theater, or not do it at all"—we place ourselves in a paradoxical position.

Several foreign initiatives can inspire change. In the United States, after the #MeToo wave, coordination of intimacy as a legitimate position in film and theater was established. The union SAG-AFTRA, which unites about 160,000 people working in the media industry, issued standardized guidelines for working with intimacy or nudity and provides psychological first aid, trauma support (trauma stewardship), and more.5 The paradox of precarity associated with technological innovations and irregular working hours in theaters has also been recognized by several German theaters, which have signed the so-called anti-discrimination clause in employment contracts, addressing issues beyond racism and humiliation, including psychological abuse and pressure to perform. In the Czech Republic, the platform divadlo.pro is attempting to raise awareness about contractual conditions, and the National Institute for Culture recently presented a draft Code of Fair Practice, aimed at improving working conditions and establishing fair remuneration (primarily) for freelance artists.

Slovak theater will probably have to wait for similar activities. We lack more serious data mapping current working conditions; theaters still follow outdated OSH rules, and many do not address the issues I mentioned above. Between November 2025 and January 2026, I conducted a survey focused on work regulations in Slovak state theaters. Out of 29 valid responses, only 37.9 percent of respondents follow the work regulation from 2025. The remaining theaters have not yet responded to the challenges of digital platforms, changes in personal data protection, or amendments to the Labor Code. Rules of work between external collaborators and employees are mostly communicated orally (33.3 percent) or not at all (24.2 percent), which can generate paradoxical situations I described earlier. I have often seen frustrated employees clenching their teeth at external collaborators and their differing work standards. Conversely, I have also often seen burned-out theater artists on freelance who, by juggling multiple projects, compensate for income gaps. Nineteen responses from the survey identify communication tension, time and performance pressure, and low work valuation as the greatest psychosocial risks. On the other hand, only 48.3 percent of respondents have an ethical code as part of their work regulations or other guidelines, which not only regulates ethical behavior at work but also defines basic work standards. At Ján Palárik Theatre, in autumn 2025, we adopted such an ethical code, and the unions appointed the first-ever ethical commissioner with a mandate to address violations of the code by employees and external collaborators.

Emancipation of work in theater today cannot rely on further hyperactivity, constant production, or endless online availability. On the contrary – one of the possible acts of resistance could be rejecting the logic of constant productivity. Truly rejecting the moral imperative "you must love theater, or not do it at all" does not necessarily mean resigning from our "inner Genius." On the contrary, at a time when capitalism colonizes every aspect of human life, stepping away from this Kantian label can become – in Jacques Rancière's words – "a form of thinking, practice, and organization free from the assumption of inequality, hierarchical pressure, and belief in hierarchy."

In the concluding part of the trilogy, I will attempt to formulate starting points and new standards of work. I will ask about psychosocial safety, fair remuneration, and labor-law status. Because if theater is to be a space of emancipation, it cannot operate under conditions that consider exhaustion, insecurity, and self-exploitation as natural states. Perhaps the ability to reimagine a more dignified organization of work will be one of the most important cultural tasks in the coming years.

The author is a dramaturg and unionist

The text is part of the PERSPECTIVES project – a new brand for independent, constructive, and multiperspective journalism. The project is funded by the European Union. The opinions and positions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The European Union or EACEA do not accept any responsibility for them.