Claybourne Elder’s ‘Company’ Story Is Exactly Why We Need to Get Serious About Work-Life Balance in Theatre
(Photo: Theme Parks & Entertainment)
by Chris Peterson
Broadway performer Claybourne Elder recently opened up on the podcast I Wanna Be Like You with Elbi Cespedes about why he has stepped away from Broadway while his son is growing up, and one story from his time in the 2021 revival of Company should make everyone in this industry sit with themselves for a minute.
Elder said he was asked to come into the show on a scheduled night off, a night he had planned to spend with his young son, because no understudies were available and the production team said they would otherwise have had to cancel the performance if he didn’t come in. You can view the clip here.
His son, who was four or five at the time, was crushed. Elder said the experience has stayed with him. And honestly? It should stay with a lot more people than just him.
Because this is not just a sweet, sad little parenting anecdote. This is a pretty perfect example of how theatre, and frankly, a lot of workplaces, love to dress up poor planning as devotion to the art.
Let’s be very clear here. Claybourne Elder did not fail that production. The production failed him.
He had a night off. That should mean something. That should not mean “available unless the emergency is inconvenient enough.” That should not mean “technically free, but only until someone makes you feel guilty enough to leave your child disappointed.”
And yes, I know this was during the time the industry was coming back from COVID. I know productions were dealing with impossible circumstances. But that is also exactly why this matters.
If the system only works when someone has to sacrifice their family time, then the system does not work.
In theatre, we talk about community. We post about family. We say that a company is a family, which is always a fun little red flag dressed up as a compliment. But the real family is the kid waiting at home who thought he had his dad for the night. Real family is the person who finally got one evening carved out of an exhausting schedule and had to give it back because a production did not have enough coverage.
And the part that really gets me is the emotional pressure baked into it. Because no one has to say, “You’re a bad person if you don’t come in.” They just have to say, “The show will be canceled if you don’t.” That does the work all by itself. That puts the entire weight of the room, the audience, the box office, the cast, the crew, and the producer panic directly onto one performer’s shoulders. Congratulations, we have invented guilt with better lighting.
I’ve been in those situations myself, and I think a lot of you have. Maybe not on Broadway, maybe not with a Sondheim revival hanging in the balance, but in jobs where your time off is treated like a suggestion instead of a boundary. And the older I get, and especially now when time matters to me more than ever, the more infuriating this becomes.
Because time is not some cute little perk. Time is life. Time with your family, your kids, your partner, your parents, your friends, yourself. Once it is gone, it is gone. No standing ovation gives it back.
We have to stop romanticizing burnout as a form of commitment. Productions need enough understudies. They need enough swings. They need contingency plans that do not depend on quietly pressuring someone to abandon the life they are supposed to be allowed to have outside the theatre. And if that happens, then cancel the performance.
The show must go on is a nice phrase. But, every once in a while, the better lesson is that people have lives, families, and children who will remember whether we showed up for them.