Dorothy Fortenberry

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When the Writers Guild of America strike began in early May of 2023, screenwriter, playwright and essayist Dorothy was in the middle of promoting an Apple TV+ mini-series titled “Extrapolations,” on which she’d worked as executive producer and writer. As a result, she had to cancel all appearances relating to the show, which was especially disappointing to her given that it was the first major scripted TV show about climate change. Instead, she braved the blistering heat of summer in Burbank, CA and started walking the picket lines.

Dorothy’s TV producing and writing credits also include the acclaimed Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The 100” for the CW network. Her work on “The Handmaid’s Tale” earned her not only multiple Emmy nominations but also a Producers Guild Award as well as a Writers Guild Award. 

Her plays have been performed all over the country, including at the sadly now-defunct Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, KY; IAMA Theatre in Los Angeles; and the Red Fern Theatre Company in New York City.

Here she describes how in 15 years streaming channels went from being a writer’s playground to an ever more precarious means to earn a basic living. She also explains why the current strike is crucial not only for Writers Guild members but also any worker whose profession is in danger of ever becoming just another gig. 

Choose a question below to begin exploring the interview:

• Take me back to the weeks and days leading up to the strike. What were you working on, and what was the feeling around town around for you and your colleagues?
• How has it been for you since the strike? What’s the feeling, now that we’re about to enter the fourth month?
• What do you think the average person who’s only read maybe headlines and the first paragraph of what the strike is about, what do you think they really need to fundamentally understand about what’s at stake for writers?
• When you were first starting out, what did you imagine your career would look like? And since then, now that you’re on the picket lines, what do you wish you’d known at the time that might’ve been helpful?
• How has your understanding of the economic model changed in the intervening years since you entered television?
• Why does a silo exist in streaming and not in network TV? Is it just because of the schedule of network?
• In terms of the negotiations that are going on regarding the use of AI, how hopeful are you that the union is going to be able to protect the writers’ IP and the writers’ livelihood?
• Is there anything you’re learning from this labor action in television that you think is applicable to the world of theater?
• In the world of TV or theater or both, is there something, a status quo, a way of doing things, that you’d love to see changed or reinvented?

Pier Carlo Talenti: I’m wondering if you could take me back to the weeks and days leading up to the strike. What were you working on, and what was the feeling around town around for you and your colleagues?

Dorothy Fortenberry: The feeling was definitely nervous. I had been through a strike-authorization vote in 2017. I had been a captain in 2017, and we did not —

Pier Carlo: What does captain mean?

Dorothy: Oh, captain is, you kind of have a collection of people, so it’s kind of the lowest rung up on the organizational totem pole. You have maybe 10 to 20 people who you are checking in on, making sure they’re doing OK. Especially with the strike authorization vote and all of the meetings that the Guild holds to discuss the issues, you just want to make sure people are feeling informed, that their concerns are answered, that they feel taken care of. 

I had been a captain in 2017, and that was a vote that like at, I don’t know, 2 a.m. or something, they finally reached a deal. We had been making signs and having t-shirts printed, and it felt very sort of knife’s edge that there might be a strike that year. I think this year we were all kind of like, “Er, is it going to be like that, or are we going to have a last-minute reprieve and not really strike? Or is there going to be one?”

I think for people who had been around in 2007, 2008, the last time there was a writers’ strike, those folks had a bit of perspective and were genuinely less stressed out. I think also just mathematically they tended to be further along in their careers and were kind of like, “Well, yeah, there might be a strike.” But I think for people who had not been through one, there was a lot of anxiety. “Will it happen? Will it not happen? What will it be like? What will it mean? How long will it last?” We really didn’t know.

For me personally what I was working on at the time was a couple things. I was the co-showrunner of a show called “Extrapolations,” which premiered in March on Apple TV+. We were still doing a lot of screenings and press and podcasts and print interviews and hosting events. It was the first big scripted drama television show about climate change, and Scott Z. Burns, who created the show and was the showrunner, and I were always looking for different ways or different angles to try to get people to know about it. In a world where there’s 600 shows a year, just getting people to know you made a show is its own event. And that was something that came to a dead halt with the strike. 

Pier Carlo: Because, like actors, you’re no longer allowed to promote.

Dorothy: Exactly, we’re not allowed to promote. I had had a week of things booked, and then all of a sudden, I was like, “Well, I’m going to return that dress to the store because I will not be wearing it because I am not attending this event.” That was the first level of things that I had to cancel, all press and promotion for “Extrapolations.” 

I also was in very early stages of development of a new TV project that I had just sort of been sent. It’s what’s called commencement. I had just been commenced. They had just said like, “Yes, we want you to start writing.” And so, just in case there was a strike, I was frantically trying to write a first draft of a five-to-10-page document on this new project, but I didn’t get to a place where I felt like turning it into the studios. I shared it with some people internally, the creator of the show, and I was like, “Hey, here’s a draft, but it’s kind of a mess and I wouldn’t show it to you normally, except maybe we’re going on strike, so at the very least, this is my early first-draft work on this project”. 

So when the strike decision came down and we all found out, “OK, we’re striking,” the things that meant for me were an end to promotion of “Extrapolations,” an end to doing any events, and then also I couldn’t do any more writing or work on this early new show.

Pier Carlo: Or really plan any future ones until you had more certainty. 

Dorothy: No.

Pier Carlo: And how has it been for you since the strike? I know you’ve been out on the picket lines. What’s the feeling, now that we’re about to enter the fourth month, I think?

Dorothy: Yeah, I think it’s 120 days. I’m not positive, but it’s been a long, long summer. 

I think the energy and the mood of the writers and now the actors remains pretty buoyant. I was on the picket lines yesterday, and it’s been hard. It’s been challenging in a number of ways, but I do feel like the resolve and the determination to get a contract that is fair for us and that prepares us for the future that we’re facing, that feels undiminished. 

I’ve never participated in a strike before. I think I’ve probably gone to rallies or showed up to support somebody else, but I’ve never been on strike before, and it has been a real adjustment, just as a way of life. It’s very physically hard, which I wasn’t prepared for. It’s just walking; you’re not walking very fast. I’m not in the world’s greatest shape, but I sort of thought [laughing], “How hard can it be?” But it is really draining.

Pier Carlo: And walking in a Burbank summer.

Dorothy: Oh gosh, it’s so hot. They cut down the trees at Universal, so there’s very little shade. It’s very hot, and your pace isn’t determined by you. You’re walking in a line, and so your pace and your gait are kind of this communally agreed-upon thing, and if somebody in front of you is walking a different speed or a different rhythm, you have to adjust. And then you’re holding a sign, and you know, like my shoulder got kind of out of whack, and I was like, “Ah, this is so silly. It’s not a very heavy sign.” But nonetheless, I still need to go and do stretches when I come home to make sure that my legs and my arms have recovered from the hours of walking in a circle, holding a sign.

Pier Carlo: What do you think the average person who’s only read maybe headlines and the first paragraph of what the strike is about, what do you think they really need to fundamentally understand about what’s at stake for writers?

Dorothy: I think the question is, is writing a job or is it a gig? I think this idea that you can have a career, you can have a job where, yeah, you’re always applying to the new things and sometimes they cancel your show but you can build a life and some sense of stability, that’s really rare in a lot of industries. I think 50 years ago, 70 years ago, all kinds of industries looked like this. You could have a family that was supported by somebody who had a unionized job, and that person had a reason to believe that they could keep working that job and continue to provide this lifestyle. In so many other industries, that has collapsed, and what is left is, you can do this hustle over here, you can do that hustle over there, but you’re always just scrambling for the next bit of cash, and there’s no sense that this is a decades-long commitment. Like I have a pension. Who has a pension? I have a pension. I have these very old-fashioned things that I’m very grateful for. 

What I would like people to understand is if we are able to make this a kind of job where you can depend on it and you can depend on some relationship to your employment and build a life from that, there’s no reason that should be only for us. That should be for everybody.

What I would like people to understand is if we are able to make this a kind of job where you can depend on it and you can depend on some relationship to your employment and build a life from that, there’s no reason that should be only for us. That should be for everybody. Almost all of the jobs in television are union jobs, and we live in a very unionized world where the people that we’re interacting with on set have some expectation of labor protections, of health insurance, of minimums. I wish that people would see from this that this is something that brings us a lot of real tangible benefits. If we aren’t able to hold onto these things, if writing becomes another thing that you do one-off for a minute for someone Venmo-ing you and then it’s over, it really limits who can do that job and what kind of life they can have.

Pier Carlo: And do you think it would affect the quality of what’s created?

Dorothy: Oh, yeah! I think the ability to have trust and confidence and a long creative relationship will always make work that feels better, that feels richer, that you can watch over time. I think that’s definitely true. 

I think also if writing is a career that is able to provide for people, then you get a wider range of perspectives. You can get all kinds of people. If this is something that people are just doing as a hobby, then you’re going to get a lot of TV shows about how hard it is to have a trust fund. That’s not going to be good for the quality of the shows. You want all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds to be able to tell stories, and that requires a certain level of stability of employment.

Pier Carlo: I want to talk about this pretty remarkable career you’ve crafted for yourself, not only as a TV writer but also as a playwright. When you were first starting out, let’s say when you were about to leave graduate school, what did you imagine your career would look like? And since then, now that you’re on the picket lines, what do you wish you’d known at the time that might’ve been helpful?

Dorothy: Oh, man. I graduated right in the middle of the 2008 financial collapse, so the first thing is that I had imagined a career where there wasn’t a global financial collapse. [She laughs.] I was getting an MFA in playwriting, and I didn’t have, I think, a delusional sense of the career possibilities for playwrights, but I think I had a sense that there were career possibilities for playwrights, certainly and especially within academic institutions. My expectation in graduate school was that I would apply for jobs, try to get a job teaching undergrad, teaching at a grad school, and that I would make a life within an academic institution. And then I graduated and there were no jobs. Those jobs just didn’t exist anymore. There were no listings. And so all of the work that I had done and the workshops I had gone into about how to prepare your CV and etc., etc., it just didn’t matter.

Pier Carlo: You mean specifically for academic careers?

Dorothy: Exactly. I feel like I had gotten a lot of prep on here’s how to have an academic career, and then that all went up in the air the moment that I arrived on the scene, so I had to do something else. I did a couple different things kind of all over the place, but I ended up in TV. 

The moment I ended up in TV was kind of the inverse of the moment I graduated. The moment I graduated felt like a historically terrible time to be entering a labor market, specifically in arts education. It just felt very grim. Conversely, when I started doing television in the early twenty-teens, there was a lot of excitement. There was a lot of enthusiasm. Things were just opening up, and there was a real sense of like, “Oh, we could have more shows. We could have more different kinds of shows. Lots of cool things could be on TV.” 

Looking back on it now, I feel very grateful that that was the moment that I entered. It was pure luck. I had no crystal ball, I had no way of knowing, but I was able to enter the business at a moment when people felt excited to meet me. And not just me. I mean, people felt excited to meet anybody. There was a real enthusiasm about new stories, this kind of “only IP, only pre-awareness, only stories that we know we already know” hadn’t really crested yet. And so it was fun. It was fun to be taking meetings where people seemed grateful to meet me and interested in the idea that I might have new stories to tell.

I just happened to totally coincidentally show up in the television world at a time where there was an expansion going on. There was an expansion in the number of jobs and also in the kinds of stories people wanted to tell. It was the rise of streaming and limiteds, and you could do fewer episodes. You didn’t have to have an idea that necessarily seemed like it would generate 200 iterations. The previous mandate of television was, “OK, you have an idea, but can it be on the air for seven years, 24 times a year, because that’s how this economic model is built? The economic model is built that it really only starts to be very profitable in syndication.” 

It seemed for a little bit like, “Oh, there’s this different economic model, and you don’t have to have an idea that reaches a lot of people. You can have an idea that reaches a couple people.” It was just pure luck that that’s the year that I walked in the door.

Pier Carlo: And so how has your understanding of the economic model changed in the intervening years since you entered television?

Dorothy: I think what’s tricky is that a lot of the enthusiasm for this new streaming paradigm has really dimmed as we’ve seen that there aren’t the protections for writers and actors getting paid in the same way. There aren’t the residuals; there aren’t the proportional compensation. If you have a hit, if you end up being in a really big breakout, they don’t tell you the numbers! The Nielsens are public. Anybody can go into the physical newspaper and look at the Nielsens and go, “Oh, this show got this many viewers last night.” That empowers the creators of the show and the actors of that show to be able to say, “Look here, I’m pointing at a number! This many people watch the show. I can work backwards and say, ‘Well, if this many people watch the show and this is what you sell advertising rates for, this is how much money you made last night. Now let me figure out how much money I made based on this thing that was on the air.’” But because streamers keep all of that data to themselves, there’s no way of knowing whether you’re on a hit, not a hit. If you’re on a hit, you can’t argue for more money. 

I think the short episode order at first felt exciting because you could have a kind of weird idea. You could have an idea where no one necessarily wants to go there for 200 episodes, but, yeah, for eight, OK, cool. But what the streamers have found is that you can stretch those eight episodes over several years. What it means is that the person who’s making it is making much, much less money because even if they’re being paid per episode, that stretches out over time. 

Then the other writers are now being brought in for these tiny little bits of time, two weeks, four weeks, six weeks. Unless you’re someone who can string together a lot of little rooms, which is hard — it’s hard to get those jobs in the first place; it’s hard to get those interviews in the first place — you’re not working enough to pay your rent, make your health-insurance minimums, keep the lights on. You can get these little snippets of a job, but they’re not a real job. 

I don’t think I understood that, certainly when I was starting out. My first job was on a network show, and at the time, so many of my friends were getting jobs on Netflix things, and they seemed so much more glamorous. You could curse, and they were the ones getting attention in the newspapers. And I was on a network show. 

But looking back on it, that was another incredibly lucky break because I got sent to set. I learned how set worked. In my very first year, I had producorial experience. That show had a lot of episodes, and we were doing all of the things at once. We were writing, we were editing, we were producing, we were prepping, we were shooting. In a network model, all of those jobs are simultaneous, and so as a very early-career writer, you just get placed into the middle of it and someone makes you go to a prop meeting, whether you’re prepared or not, simply because there aren’t enough bodies.

I ended up being placed in circumstances where I just had to learn how to do the job because I was thrown into it, and I’m so grateful for that. The people who were on the sort of more prestigious shows were often only working on writing and often not even really writing scripts, just kind of story generation. Then all the other parts of production were just being done by the showrunner, and so no one else was learning how to do those parts.

Pier Carlo: Why does that silo exist in streaming and not in network TV? Is it just because of the schedule of network?

Dorothy: Yeah, it’s the time pressure. In network, you have to have a new show the day after Labor Day. There’s literally going to be dead air on Thursdays at 8 if you don’t have your show out. On streaming, like, is it coming out in March? Is it coming out in July? Is it coming out in 2025? There’s not the same pressure. There’s not the same clock, so they can take an extra year or two. They can really draw out the post-production process and ask for, “We’ll do another round of edits and do another round of edits. And what if you went back in and did some ADR?” It’s infinitely tweakable, whereas in network, it’s like, “Get it the best that it can be because we need another one the next week and then we need another one.” You’re not aiming for perfection, but also you just have to keep making the thing.

Again, I think some writers and producers were excited at first by the streaming model because they felt it’s hard to make art with somebody breathing down your neck and demanding a new show every week, so you can take more risks and be more careful and really polish the object and make it really beautiful. But at the same time, you’re not getting paid more, none of your staff is getting paid and none of those people are getting the experience. I think in the past decade, we’ve really seen the downside of this infinitely extendable thing.

And then the final thing I’ll say about streaming is they can also just erase your show. Network shows once they’re shot, sometimes if the numbers aren’t good, they don’t pick up the back nine. Sometimes if the numbers are terrible, they’ll only air one or two, and then they’ll be like, “Yeah, no, that show’s done.” I have a friend who just yesterday got a call that this show that they had spent two years working on was never going to be aired by the network that bought it and they’re never even going to find out whether it’s a hit or not. The economic model is such that they would rather take the tax write-off than even try to get someone to watch it. At least in network, if they’ve gone to the trouble of ordering a season of it, they’ll put up one billboard and try to get someone to watch it.

Pier Carlo: You yourself had planned to enter academia, but for so many playwrights, TV can be a path to a comfortable middle-class life. I know that you have hired a lot of playwrights to work on your shows. I was looking at who was in “Extrapolations.” It’s a who’s who of great theater writers.

Dorothy: Yeah, it’s amazing.

Pier Carlo: So I’m also thinking that the stakes are high for a lot of playwrights in the strike as well.

Dorothy: Yes, yes. I think for playwrights, there are a couple of different paths, depending on who somebody is and what kind of life they want to live, but having some kind of relationship to television and film really does ease the anxieties of being a playwright, just financially. It just can give you a little bit of a cushion. It can give you a little bit of predictability. And again, the health insurance, it’s no joke. All four members of my family are on the Writers Guild health insurance, and that matters a ton in our daily lives, that I can take them to the doctor. 

Because of the explosion of shows, there were just more shows and more shows and more shows every year. I think it gave a lot of playwrights an entry point and an ability to try it out, but I think it also started turning into something that was a lot of work for less money and less stability. I have friends who are playwrights who have only done mini rooms. They’ve never been on a real season of a television show that goes for nine months. They’ve just done these kind of like, six weeks here, six weeks there, and that’s not nothing, but it’s not necessarily enough to qualify for the health insurance or to qualify for the pension. It is much more of a gig option.

Pier Carlo: I am thinking about the history of other labor unions who have really worked to protect their workers from the effects of mechanization, robotization, and in no small measure have lost many of those battles. In terms of the negotiations that are going on regarding the use of AI, how hopeful are you that the union is going to be able to protect the writers’ IP and the writers’ livelihood?

Dorothy: Yeah, I’m nervous just because I know I don’t know what’s going to happen. I do think having the actors join us was really encouraging on this front because I think the AI question is one where the actors’ and the writers’ incentives are very aligned. And I think probably for everybody on set who does something that could theoretically be replicated. I mean, editors, I’m sure they’re going to teach an AI how to edit. Maybe not people who are physically hanging lights with their hands, but anybody who’s doing anything where they’re at a computer or they’re having their face or their body on screen is at risk. I think the fact that all of us understand we’re facing the same threat makes me more encouraged. I think if the actors had settled for a deal that did not incorporate AI protections, I would feel worse because I’d be like, “Oh no, they gave away the store. It’s going to make it harder for us.” What gives me hope is that I think we all see that that struggle is going to be one for all of us. 

This isn’t just a writer question or an actor question. This is doctors and lawyers and journalists and teachers and CPAs. I think a lot of people who have jobs are going to face some sort of existential threat from AI.

But I think you’re right. Looking at a historical sweep, technological innovation almost always is used as a wedge to disempower and harm workers, at least originally. Anytime anything’s developed, the first thing is, “Oh, good, now we can get around these pesky union contracts, and now we can get around these pesky labor laws.” Will we be able to hold the line, push back, think about protections? I hope so because this isn’t just a writer question or an actor question. This is doctors and lawyers and journalists and teachers and CPAs. I think a lot of people who have jobs are going to face some sort of existential threat from AI.

And I hope that by being out there in the public. being very visible, being very upset about this, we are waving a flag for a lot of other industries to say, “Hey, this is coming for you, and the only way that you’re going to be able to resist it or make sure it’s incorporated in a way that doesn’t destroy your industry is if your workers are a united front. There is nothing that one individual is going to be able to do to buck the onslaught of AI, but a unified collection of workers can do a lot.”

Pier Carlo: I want to turn back to theater. Playwrights do not have a union, but there is a lot that needs to be fixed in theater, particularly in regard to playwrights’ livelihood. Is there anything you’re learning from this labor action in television that you think is applicable to the world of theater?

Dorothy: I think the most powerful thing for me about the strike has been what it is like to have honest conversations with my peers. There’s been an incredible amount of sharing, just really open, clear, vulnerable sharing of information. Practical information, tangible information and then also emotional information: “How are we all doing?” That is something that I think social media mimics but distorts. Social media makes it really easy to fire off something in a bout of rage or call somebody out or tell everyone you’re really sad. Social media makes it very easy to show the shiniest possible version of your life and like, here you are all dressed up. I mean, I’ve done this too. “La, la, la, everything’s delightful. Look at this nice shiny surface.” 

Being on the picket line, being in physical, actual, real space with people walking for hours where there’s nowhere else you can or need to get to — you’re not feeling the time pressure of, “I’ve got to wrap this conversation up” — people have just been letting it all hang out in a way that I think is very valuable to us as workers and to us as a guild. When we’re by ourselves, when we’re individuals, if something bad happens to us at work or if we feel mistreated or unfairly compensated or whatever it is, there’s a real tendency to blame yourself and then also not want to necessarily broadcast it because you’re broadcasting that someone didn’t think you were worthy of more money, more respect, whatever. So there’s a lot of private pain and private shame and negative experiences that people have been walking around with by themselves. To be in physical space, talking about them while also doing something about it … . 

That’s the other thing about the strike that I think has been so empowering and I would hope could be a model for theater or anybody else. It’s also not just kvetching. Kvetching is beautiful, I love to kvetch, but by the act of striking, we are very clearly saying, “We will not stand for this. We are going to do something else. We are demanding something better.” So it’s not only venting; it’s, “We believe a better world is possible, and we are taking literal steps to ensure that better world can be realized.” And so I would wish for playwrights, for anyone in the theater space, to be able to have honest, vulnerable — you know, “Name names, name numbers” — those real conversations with people, but then also try to imagine, “What could we do differently? How could we make it change?” Not just end in like, “And that was terrible, and now I’m sad,” but “What are we doing to actually make the better version of this that we believe is possible because we believe in it and we love it and we’re not quitting and we’re not leaving? We’re trying to make it better.”

Pier Carlo: In the world of TV or theater or both, outside of what’s being negotiated for in the contract, is there something, a status quo, a way of doing things, that you’d love to see changed or reinvented?

Dorothy: I think there’s a big culture shift that’s already happening and making it more real and more secure around a culture of kind of macho-ness, which is not gendered in any particular way. I think in Hollywood, certainly right now, there can still be a valorization of suffering. If you get people together, they can tell stories about like, “I wrote this script when my leg was broken!” And “Well, I wrote the script when my appendix was falling out!” There’s this desire to prove how tough you are by how many painful or difficult things you didn’t let bother you. 

I think shifting that to a culture of like, “What if you didn’t work 20 hours a day?” What if the bragging is like, “I worked eight hours a day, and then I ate a reasonable meal and got a good night’s sleep and I still made this work of art that’s good!” I think that would be exciting to me. I would like to eat decent food and get decent rest, but also, if I ever have a show, I will be the boss of a bunch of people, I will be the employer of a bunch of people, and I would like to have a workplace where people feel healthy, where people feel like they don’t have to do these macho acts of self-destruction. I also would want to feel like that would be supported by the industry and that I wouldn’t be this total weirdo who was saying, “Yes, go to the dentist!”

Pier Carlo: Especially supported — this is true in theater as well as TV and film — as a parent, right?

Dorothy: Totally. When I started out in television, I did get the advice to lie about having kids.

Pier Carlo: Really?

Dorothy: Yeah, yeah. Somebody said, “Look, just don’t tell them in the meeting. Wait until your contract is done.”

Pier Carlo: Because they’ll assume your attention will be divided.

Dorothy: Exactly. They’ll assume that you won’t be available, and they’ll assume that you won’t want to do it. A while ago, I went to a Writers Guild event that was about moms in the industry, but the whole thing turned into a one-upmanship of people telling like, “Well, I was doing a rewrite while I was in active labor,” and “Well, I was producing this episode while I was having a C-section.”

Pier Carlo: It’s that macho thing you were talking about.

Dorothy: It’s that macho thing! It was a bunch of women being incredibly macho to each other about how hard they had worked.

Pier Carlo: And “No, I didn’t have an epidural!”  That kind of thing, right?

Dorothy: Exactly, exactly. And “I was on set and nine of my organs failed, and three of my children fell off the roof, and I kept going.” And I was like, “I mean, this is sort of a conversation about being moms within the industry, but we’re also just kind of bragging about our pain and how much we can tolerate. I don’t know that this kind of sharing contains within it the seeds of anything better: to be like, ‘And then I took six weeks off and let all my insides heal.’ Or ‘My kid was going through a tough time, and here’s how I navigated being there for them as they needed extra care or extra support.’” 

I think we’re in the middle of this shift. I think people younger than me are the ones who are really bringing it about. I am grateful for and excited to see that happen because I think it’s a prerequisite to having a long career. I keep talking and thinking about, how do we make this something that’s not just a job but is a lifetime? You can destroy yourself physically, mentally, spiritually for one job, but you can’t do that over and over and over again. You’ll get wrung out, you’ll get destroyed, and the industry as it’s constructed doesn’t care. They’ll find another one. “OK, you’re a mess. You’re a desiccated husk of a person. Cool. There’ll be somebody new coming down the pike.” 

But for you as the person, I think if you want to be able to continue to access the emotions and the creativity that allow you to do this work, you also want to be taken care of as a human being.