![]() ![]() “It’s a lot more grunt work than your typical mentoring-based internship,” Federa said. He said he was there when the stage-management internship program was in its inception and doesn’t believe it offers any more real-world experience than a theater student would receive in a college production. One exception is Austin Federa, who worked for “Sleep No More” for nine months, until June 2011, and was part of the initial volunteer crew that helped set up the space in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. On Tuesday, International Business Times reported on a “Sleep No More” internship posting that appeared to openly flout labor laws by explaining that interns would be required to work full-time hours and even help “supervise and ensure safety of both the performers and audience.” Since the article appeared, former “Sleep No More” interns and backstage helpers contacted IBTimes to say that they believe the show’s stage-management internship program fosters a pattern of habitual labor and wage violations.įew would speak on the record, for fear of either litigation or damaging their reputation in the insular theater industry. But instead they are asked to perform the tasks of professional production assistants who would be well-compensated in the real world, according to people who worked for the show. The immersive riff on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” which has been playing to intermittently sold-out crowds for more than two years, lures in new interns with the promise of a so-called unique learning experience and "privilege" of being part of a huge word-of-mouth hit. ![]() If you care about the burgeoning unpaid-internship movement, here’s something that may keep you up at night: Interns for the wildly popular interactive show “Sleep No More” do a lot of grunt work for little educational benefit and no pay, according to people familiar the show.įormer interns who worked for the site-specific megahit in New York City describe a cyclical labor mill of unpaid interns training new interns and juggling backstage tasks that were once performed by paid staff - aggressive violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Eric Jackson Bradley and Tori Sparks in “Sleep No More.” Lucas Jackson/Reuters
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