SDA website<\/a>. <\/p>\nWhile the budget cuts were initially made in the fall, the students involved in the sit-in said that they are now taking a stand because their previous efforts to meet with and write letters to the Dean of SDA Emily Roxworthy were unsuccessful. <\/p>\n
The SDA students\u2019 demands include hiring multiple full-time staff members, including two carpentry staff members, a scenic painter or an additional part-time scenic painter, a costume shop manager or another costume shop floor manager and a new costume build manager. They also demand that production professors lead the hiring committee, and that the school fund upperclassmen\u2019s attendance at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology conference.<\/p>\n
In a statement provided to Annenberg Media, an SDA spokesperson wrote that these budget cuts were part of a university-wide directive to address a $200million deficit. According to the spokesperson, the school has worked to navigate these operations with students\u2019 education as the primary consideration. <\/p>\n
\u201cDean Roxworthy has remained committed to communicating openly regarding these challenging budget decisions \u2014 meeting regularly with faculty, staff, student groups, and any individual who requests time with her. We are grateful for the contributions of everyone who is a part of the SDA community,\u201d the spokesperson wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the staffing and resource concerns raised by students are already being actively addressed, with plans for several of the referenced positions and support areas currently underway,\u201d the statement continued. <\/p>\n
Margaret Danenhauer, a sophomore Media Arts and Practice major who attended the sit-in, commented on how SDA overworks their Tech majors without pay. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of adding insult to injury to not fully support their actual program and education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danenhauer described the energy at the protest as \u201cnon-aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could almost call it a study-in, just people sitting around, doing work,\u201d she continued, \u201cThere were a lot of signs on the walls and pamphlets on the tables but other than that you wouldn\u2019t really be able to tell it wasn\u2019t just a busy building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lukas Garberg, a senior studying theatrical design, said he sent letters expressing his concerns to Roxworthy and the Office of the Provost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have put in so much work to make these shows good, and on top of that, people are going into copious amounts of debt to be here,\u201d Garberg said. \u201cAdministration can say budget cuts have to happen, but with everything we have put into it, people are going to be mad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garberg is a scenic designer on the upcoming Main Stage show, \u201cThe Gods are not to Blame.\u201d After speculation and back-and-forth over budgeting concerns, Garberg said that he spent weeks producing a singular staircase, a scenario that would not have been problematic two years ago. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have great faculty, but we lack sharp resources. Shop morale is pretty awful currently. Everyone\u2019s constantly stressed,\u201d Garberg said. \u201cOver time, if incoming freshmen are asking me, \u2018Hey, should I go to USC or UCLA?\u2019 It\u2019s harder to warrant the decision to go to USC when the same benefits don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shruthi Nadathur and Lizzie Stewart contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"School of Dramatic Arts students organized a sit-in at 10 a.m. outside Dick Wolf Drama Center Tuesday protesting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15743,48,52,51,6113,47,50,49,2058,113937,102561],"class_list":{"0":"post-257752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-budget-cuts","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-layoffs","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-protest","17":"tag-school-of-dramatic-arts","18":"tag-sit-in"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}