Since having to fork over $600 last month to pay for four hours of building overtime, the New School’s Theater Collective has had to face a new problem: losing their spot.
President, and director of their upcoming show, Mimi Barcomi, 21 made a reservation in early January to use Lang’s 12th st. Auditorium for tech rehearsals and two nights of performance of their upcoming production,“The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife.”
Less than a month before the start of rehearsals, Barcomi found that her reservation had been replaced by a Parsons faculty event. The event is being put on by the Parsons Illustration Department, is a children’s book event that includes panel presentations and discussions.
“I’m still kind of reeling from it,” said Barcomi.“To them my event was disposable.”
The Theater Collective, a group made up of students from almost every division, puts on at least two productions each semester, and primarily performs student-written work. The group only asks for funding when productions require it, and otherwise has no regular funding, often trying to put on events and productions at zero cost when possible.
The reason the group was required to pay for building overtime is that the 12th Street building closes at 6 pm on Saturdays, and since Barcomi wanted to have their show at night, the group was required to pay to keep it open. Each hour of building overtime is $150, which covers the cost of the security guard, and AV tech and the other basic costs.
“They [say we] have to pay the security guard, electricity, heat, and basically [want] for us to pay the bills,” said Barcomi.
Because of the Parsons event, the group lost the first day of their tech rehearsal, which was scheduled for the Monday before the show, and the time slot for their Saturday night show.
The news came after Barcomi had already started to promote the show throughout the university, including talking about it in The New School Free Press.
According to Catherine Gobel, the Coordinator of Student Programs, the requests were not finalized in time because the Collective did not have their funds in. Since the Collective booked their events during hours in which the building is not open it then becomes a special request.
Though the Collective requested funding from the Lang Student Union, Gobel says the building was already booked for the Parsons event by the time their funding came through.
Barcomi was never directly told by the Office of Student Development and Activities (OSDA), who helped her make the reservation, that they had bumped her event, instead she found out merely by chance.
“I was at work and something in the back of my head said you should just check and make sure your reservations are good and are in there,” she said.
After checking the system, she found that her reservation had been replaced.
“When she (Mary Doctor, Manager of Public Programming Services) saw that these Parsons faculty had put in requests for the days and times that mine were already there, she made the decision to prioritize those events over mine, so I got bumped.”
“She (Catherine Gobel) told me she was planning on telling me, I don’t know when she planning on doing that. When I showed up for my tech week?”
After having difficulty performing in the University Center’s auditorium last semester, due to its lack of basic theater elements including a backstage, curtains and a real dressing room, the group worked hard to ensure they found a proper space for their show.
“It’s the only space on campus with a backstage, with curtains, with wings, with a dressing room,” Barcomi said of the 12th street Auditorium.
Before this the OSDA had made no mention that there was ever a possibility of the Collective’s event being bumped. The group had already starting advertising the event and promoting it to students when they found out their dates would have to be changed.
Though Catherine Gobel sees it differently.
“Mimi was made aware that the reservation was not secure until the funding went through,” says Gobel.
Though even after funding had come through Barcomi wasn’t notified the space had been booked by someone else.
“After I received LSU funding for overtime hours on Saturday I let Catherine know, but she never told me that she booked the space,” said Barcomi
Barcomi says she also received no help in finding an alternate solution.
“People were asking, ‘oh why don’t you use an off campus venue?’ If I wanted to do that it probably would have had to happen six-months to a year in advance, and would have cost upwards of $5000, so that wasn’t happening.”
Even without the help of administration, Barcomi managed to save her show. She was able to move her rehearsal the week before the show from Monday to Sunday, and decided to move the time of her Saturday show from its original time of 8:30 to 9:30.
By moving the rehearsal day to Sunday, the group needed extra funding for building overtime. The 12th St. building isn’t open on Sundays, making the cost of their three-hour rehearsal $450. To get the extra funds the group applied to LSU who funded them the first time.
“My show is saved,” Barcomi said, “but only by the grace of me working my ass off and another student-run organization that was willing to support me and my creative endeavor, as opposed to the actual institution itself trying to help me come up with a solution.”
Barcomi wants to get the word out about what happened to her, because, as she says, “If it could happen to me it could happen to anyone.”
Taylor is a journalism + design junior from Florida.
