Don’t Leave Strike Early

by Chris Peterson

Recently, I saw a podcast where leaving set strike early was jokingly called a crime. And to be honest, I’m fine with that description. Because if you’ve ever been left taking apart a set after some of your castmates decided it was time for them to go home, I imagine you have a few thoughts on the subject.

What annoys me about it is that this is something we all know is coming. The cast, crew and everyone else associated with the production knows that it’s time to pitch in. So when someone just leaves early, it really screws everyone else over. And I don’t understand why they think that’s okay. You know the people who are still there. You’ve been working with them for weeks, and now you’re leaving them with more to do because you decided it was time to go.

If you’ve worked out an arrangement to leave early, that’s fine. But just grabbing your stuff and leaving? I would be upset if I were one of the people still working. Especially if I then got to the cast party and found you there. At that point, I’d have a hard time listening to you talk about how much you’re going to miss everyone.

We do a lot of that at closing. We talk about the friendships we’ve made and how much this production meant to us. And I’m sure people mean it, but I would hope that wanting to help those same people would extend a little past the final bows. They shouldn’t have to come find you and convince you to stay for something you already agreed to do.

Now, I’m talking about theatres where participating in strike is part of the commitment and the schedule was made clear. Emergencies happen, people have limitations, and not everyone can do every task. I have no issue with any of that. If you don’t know what you can safely help with, ask. What I have an issue with is someone deciding there’s nothing for them to do without bothering to find out, then leaving everyone else to figure it out.

And I would also say that doing this regularly is a pretty good way to make people less interested in working with you. You might not hear about it that night, but I wouldn’t assume everyone was fine with it just because nobody stopped what they were doing to argue with you.

If you need to leave, have the conversation. Otherwise, stay and help the people you agreed to help.