“Carving out a career in theatre is no easy task for those who experience class inequalities. There are many obstacles to overcome, from competing with a privileged education system, lack of professional networks, caring responsibilities and exhausting time constraints – but perhaps none greater than the financial opacity and instability of creative freelancing”
Caitriona Shoobridge, RTYDS Co-Creative Lead (Fair Play)

No one should have the onus placed upon them to declare poverty trauma or financial hardship in order to receive payments in a way that works around Universal Credit and other benefits.

Instead, we would love to see organisations proactively offering alternative payment structures at the point of contracting, allowing artists to focus on what they do best: telling great stories.

Surviving on a Shoestring is our 12-month finance equity programme, where we collaborate with a theatre’s finance, producing and executive teams to trial new ways of paying creative freelancers who are in receipt of benefits.

The programme works in a bespoke way. With each organisation we co-create a tailored finance access rider; this document is sent to the creative freelancers they employ alongside their contract, and it gives them the opportunity to request an alternative payment method to the one offered in their contract.

This might include the need for fees to be broken into smaller amounts, fees to be paid on a specific date in the calendar month, or anything other than the ‘three instalment’ agreement found in most standard contracts.

We piloted the programme in 2023-2024 with Middle Child Theatre Company in Hull, Cardboard Citizens and London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), which led to organisations adopting permanent clauses to their contracts around flexible payments.

Surviving on a Shoestring pilot partners:

Since the pilot, we have partnered with organisations such as:

If you are an organisation who would like to host a pilot, please get in touch with our Programme Producer Manli Siu on manlisiu@rtyds.co.uk.

If you’re an artist – we’re keen to give as many freelance creatives and artists as possible the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences around this subject. We want to know how your experience of financial inequity is shaping your access to work.

You can share your thoughts anonymously by completing our SUPER SHORT SURVEY or by leaving us a 90 second VOICE NOTE.