A theatre or dance company runs on artists, technicians and front-of-house staff who work evenings, rehearse by day and travel for shows. The HR job is clear engagement terms, fair rehearsal and show hours, and a stage crew that stays safe.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA theatre or performing arts company usually has a small permanent core and a larger circle of artists engaged for a production or a season. The core is a director, a production manager, an administrator and a few technicians. Around them come actors, dancers, musicians, set builders, costume makers and box office staff. Work peaks in the weeks before opening and during a run, with rehearsals in the day and shows at night, on weekends and festival dates. Touring adds travel, lodging and unfamiliar venues. Money is tight and often depends on tickets, sponsors and grants, so engagement terms are loose and payments are late. Backstage work at height, with lights, rigging and cables, carries real risk. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in theatre and performing arts companies. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Artists agree to a role on a phone call, fees and dates are not written down, and disputes appear after the show closes.
A director adds one more run-through, the crew stays till midnight, and nobody records the extra time or the way home.
Payment waits for ticket income or a sponsor, so artists and technicians are chasing the administrator for weeks.
Long bus journeys, shared rooms, load-in at dawn and a show the same evening leave people tired and short-tempered.
Ladders, hanging lights, rigging, cables and quick scene changes in the dark cause injuries when no one checks the set.
A lead dancer or a lighting designer who knows the show cannot be swapped a week before opening.
Ushers and box office staff are engaged for the run, trained in ten minutes and then face an angry queue.
Casting, billing and credit arguments are handled in the green room, and the quieter person leaves the company.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Employee Engagement and Experience. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a theatre and performing arts companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Role, dates, rehearsal and show days, fee, payment date and credit, signed before work starts.
Role, dates, rehearsal and show days, fee, payment date and credit, signed before work starts. See HR documentation. Have the form checked by a qualified professional.
Call times, breaks, finish times and a rule for overruns, with travel home arranged after late calls.
Call times, breaks, finish times and a rule for overruns, with travel home arranged after late calls. See attendance, shift and leave.
A check of rigging, lights, floors and exits before every show, a named person who signs it, and a way to stop work.
A check of rigging, lights, floors and exits before every show, a named person who signs it, and a way to stop work. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
Travel days, rest, lodging standards, daily allowance and a tour lead who handles problems.
Travel days, rest, lodging standards, daily allowance and a tour lead who handles problems. Pay and allowances follow your payroll provider.
A one-page briefing on seating, emergencies, complaints and refunds, with a named supervisor each night.
A one-page briefing on seating, emergencies, complaints and refunds, with a named supervisor each night. See employee onboarding.
A neutral person, a short written account from each side and a decision before the next rehearsal.
A neutral person, a short written account from each side and a decision before the next rehearsal. See grievance and disciplinary process.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Written engagement notes for artists and crew, kept where the administrator can find them.
Call times, rehearsal limits and touring rest written down and followed.
A backstage safety routine and incident record that the stage manager actually uses.
A calm route for casting, credit and conduct disputes before they split the company.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
Eighty per cent responded, the report was thorough, and six months later trust was lower than before. What went wrong between the survey and the silence.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Write down role, dates, rehearsal and show days, fee, payment date and credit, and get it signed. Ask a qualified professional whether the arrangement is employment or a service engagement.
Fix finish times, plan the schedule backwards from opening and record overruns. Give time off or pay for repeated late calls, as agreed in advance.
A check of rigging, lights, floors, cables, exits and fire equipment before each show, signed by a named person, plus a rule that anyone can stop unsafe work.
Agree payment dates in the engagement note and keep a small reserve for crew fees. Tell people early if a date will slip.
Plan rest between travel and load-in, set lodging standards, name a tour lead and agree daily allowances before leaving.
We would meet the producer and stage manager and look at how artists are engaged, how the last rehearsal period was scheduled and how safety is checked. A fitting first task is a one-page engagement note and a show-day safety routine. Scope and fees are put in writing after we talk.
All 145 business types in professional services · Find another business type
See all HR topics for professional services, or another industry.
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.
