Space Pirates Theatre Collective
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 1: Immersion. We stage immersive theatrical experiences, creating a unique world audiences step into with each production. Our design methodology asks theatre-makers to seek out a space in the world that, through its natural use and habitation by people living and working in it, cries out for a specific play to be staged there. Designers and directors then work to draw out the latent immersivity of the space with respect to the play’s world. With this methodology, SPTC "commandeers" a new space with each production, allowing us to bring immersive theatre to the many parts of the greater Los Angeles community in a uniquely mobile way.
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 2: affordability. We are committed to staging our immersive theatrical productions for an affordable price, and we mean affordable--our tickets sit at just $10. This number is very intentional: we want our theatre to be what the movies, and even longer ago, the theatre, used to be: an affordable form of entertainment for the masses, that anyone, working-class or wealthy, can take themselves out to without suffering financial hardship. Even further, we allow those with a student I.D. to pay what they can, as we will never turn away a young person trying to experience theatre due to a lack of funds. In turn, we encourage those with the means to pay more to do so, with that added bonus that any donations made to us are fully tax-deductible as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 3: equality. We are committed to paying our artists an equal, living wage, at union rates or higher, and to being a fully union theatre collective from top to bottom. This is in an effort to ensure that all artists who work with us—cast, creative, and crew—have health insurance and financial security. All artists are paid the same wage regardless of role or number of roles, in recognition of the fact that if you have been brought aboard one of our productions, you are essential, and therefore are as deserving of equal pay as everyone else. To be in accordance with all union contracts, this means that whichever person (or position) in the cast, creative, or crew that has the highest minimum wage under their union will set the minimum for the entire production's team. We will still strive to pay well above this number, as minimums are, even under the best union contracts, still minimums, and we want our artists to not only survive, but thrive.
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 4: equity. We are committed to giving each artist who works with us a coequal equity stake in any given production they work on. Each production serves as a unique “voyage.” Inspired by share-systems used by 17th century pirates, once all production costs and base artists' wages have been covered, any additional money raised through grants, crowdfunding, ticket sales, and concessions for that particular production are split evenly as a bonus at the end of the process for all cast, creative, and crew. We do not carry any profits from one production over to fund subsequent ones, each production and any money it brings in is shared equally and entirely by the artists who worked on it. This is regardless of age, experience, pedigree, fame, or perceived marketability—we're all pirates here, and we all get an equal share.
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 5: anti-hate. We are committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for our audiences and for all artists who work with us, and are an explicitly anti-racist, anti-fascist, and anti-discrimination organization--and before making any art that demonstrates these values, it is imperative that we first "walk the walk" in the way we operate as a collective. For the safety of our artists and audiences, rehearsals and performances are held on private property, with performances acting as private events to which one’s ticket serves as an invitation. We explicitly DO NOT allow ICE or other active law enforcement to enter the premises unless they identify themselves and carry a warrant signed by a judge obliging us to do so. If a ticket holder threatens the well-being of our artists or other audience members, we employ security who will escort them out, or facilitate their being trespassed by local police.
SPTC Core Tenets Tenet 6: COMMUNITY. We are committed to highlighting the work of marginalized and erased peoples, and will reflect this by having at least half of our productions each season be written or directed by a person belonging to a marginalized or erased group, and at least half of our productions will feature a majority nonwhite and/or queer cast. This is an intentional and essential commitment on our part to not only serve marginalized and erased peoples, but to actually put their work front and center. We believe that bringing theatre to underserved communities is pointless if that work isn't at all reflective of, or of interest to those communities in the first place.
sPTC Core Tenets Tenet 7: humanity. We are committed to making art that is by and for human beings in a time of increasingly inhuman politics and technologies. Social media and other avenues for “content” have been flooded with A.I. ersatz that is built on the stolen intellectual property of actual human artists, giving them no credit or compensation for their work. We operate as an explicit counter to this soulless attack on creativity and artistic expression, which we see as the very foundation of what makes us human, by refusing to allow artificial intelligence of any kind to be used in the process of making our theatre or operating our collective. Our productions serve as a place for the communal appreciation of the arts, of culture, and of live performance- free from the environmental and ethical disaster that A.I. has been for humanity up to this point.