{"id":242,"date":"2026-03-10T13:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/?p=242"},"modified":"2026-03-10T13:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:07:18","slug":"the-death-of-the-ensemble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/?p=242","title":{"rendered":"The Death of the Ensemble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Brielle Jobe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Internet made me do it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Photo by Noah Silliman<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We know the arts are hard, but I\u2019ve begun to notice that we may be making it even harder\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists have become more than one-man-bands; they\u2019ve become their own agent, manager, accountant, social media person, publicist, editor, director, designer\u2026the list goes on. The digital age and AI have made making self-tapes and Instagram reels possible for actors, comedians, and musicians \u2014 but not without headaches, carpal tunnel, and endless nights hyped up on your substance of choice to get everything done before our 9\u20135 starts the next morning \u2014 you know, the job we do so we can actually <\/em>make money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do we do this to ourselves? Because we\u2019re sooo dedicated to our craft? Or have we just been convinced it\u2019s the only way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arts used to be a respectable field, but somewhere in the 20th Century, we devalued ourselves like a 20-something in an abusive relationship: I can\u2019t ask people for money just to see my hobby; I can\u2019t expect to make money with the thing I love; I have to do everything all by myself and that\u2019s just the way it is, it\u2019s my fault, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art in your home used to be a symbol of status. It meant you were cultured, and more importantly, rich,<\/em> if you had a painting hanging on the wall or musicians in the salon or tickets to the opera. But now, we accept donations in place of pay checks, likes and views in place of ticket sales, exposure in place of actual compensation. You have to subject yourself to hours and hours of unpaid work to earn the right and the credibility to be paid for what you do. You don\u2019t get paid as a painter if you can\u2019t show a finished product, you can\u2019t get cast in a play or a movie without demonstrating the work in front of someone, you can\u2019t fill a theatre as a comedian if you don\u2019t have footage of you performing as a comedian! It\u2019s this circular Catch-22: you must prove to us that you can create art before we pay you to create art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This may sound no different from other jobs, of course your potential employer has to see your resum\u00e9. But the thing about the arts is that they\u2019re collaborative<\/em> \u2014 they require a whole team to produce a product. If I\u2019m applying for a teaching job, I can send you a lesson plan without having taught it to a class. But if I\u2019m applying to be a director? I have to present you with an entire production or at least a scene fitted with actors, a script, and on film from a decent angle. Subsequently, there has been a boom in one-man-shows and solo performance hours. As we have become more and more isolated in our digital caves, we shy away from what art is supposed to be: a collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ensemble is dying.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But we are not meant to do art alone, we are not meant to tell stories alone. <\/em>Storytelling is the oldest human tradition. And if there\u2019s one thing we know about humans it is that we are not meant to experience life in isolation. We now live in such a fast-paced, individualistic, productivity-centered society that artists feel the screaming demand to create all day and all night. We strive to push content to gain followers to ultimately, hopefully, one day, maybe, launch our careers. But the quality of the art suffers. We talk more but say less. We commercialize and cater to the algorithms in hopes the digital gods will smile on our modest endeavors. And the best way to do that, is to take it all on ourselves. If we can learn to do everything then we don\u2019t have to coordinate, we don\u2019t have to ask for help, we can do it all. How else are we supposed to compete in this DIY digital age?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s logistically simpler!<\/em> I can\u2019t afford to pay multiple artists!<\/em> AI can do the rest!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I call bullshit.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think we\u2019re hiding behind technology and money. I think the one man show is less about logistics and finances and more about good ol\u2019 fashioned trust issues. No need to expose your ideas when you can make it all yourself when no one\u2019s looking. No need to face judgement before you\u2019ve even started. No need to chance someone letting you down.
If you do everything, you can only be disappointed in yourself when it fails. No one else has betrayed you, no one else has hurt<\/em> you. I think we insist on doing everything ourselves so we can hide behind the struggle. Music in our short film isn\u2019t so good? \u201cWell, I\u2019m not a musician, I\u2019m an actor.\u201d Marketing flops? \u201cWell, I\u2019m a painter, not a sales rep.\u201d We can continue to play the victim and be responsible for no one and nothing but ourselves. We don\u2019t have to invest so much, we don\u2019t have to take as big a risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we do a half-assed job, then we can\u2019t be that mad when it doesn\u2019t work, we can shrug our shoulders and say, well, we tried. Art is hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t want to try<\/em>. I want to succeed. 
I want to tell my stories and the stories of others. I don\u2019t want to perform in a vacuum, nor should anyone. Because we don\u2019t live in a vacuum. In order to create art we have to experience our world, and as much as your smart phone disagrees, you can\u2019t do that from behind a screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you can\u2019t do it alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when the muse strikes you next, don\u2019t curl up with your laptop in the dark. Take a friend to a coffee shop, walk through the park with a colleague, talk shop all day every day until everyone else in the bar is annoyed that a gaggle of artists stumbled in. 
Because we are meant to collaborate. And in a world where we\u2019re sucked further and further into solitary darkness, we need the ensemble more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Brielle Jobe The Internet made me do it! We know the arts are hard, but I\u2019ve begun to notice that we may be making it even harder\u2026 Artists have become more than one-man-bands; they\u2019ve become their own agent, manager, accountant, social media person, publicist, editor, director, designer\u2026the list goes on. The digital age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,12,17],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artists","tag-collaboration","tag-ensemble"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildthink.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}