$500 Budget

Fire the Costume Designer

$5,000 budget - hire the costume designer.

$500 budget - fire the costume designer.

I guess that goes without saying. $500 does not buy you a show + a professional design adapted to your performances. But! $500 can buy you a costume designer-ish person.

I took a few $500 design jobs right out of graduate school. I was in a new city, so I brought my portfolio around to every small theater and got 12 jobs in my first year. All costume designers should read $500 design fee as -$2,000 design fee. It just costs so much doing that much work over the course of a month, or more. I will do more research about the inner-workings of small professional theaters before I am so bold as to make a suggestion about how those theaters structure their seasons and budgets. For now, let’s just accept as a given that we should always strive to pay people a living wage, or engage in a barter system that is truly equal.

So, what can you do with a $500 budget?

• $105 for the rights to one performance. Everything…