SIU School of Theater and Dance, along with others on campus, have seen impactful budget cuts this year that have caused issues for different schools at SIU. For the School of Theater and Dance, this means experiencing a loss of funds that would go toward recruitment, productions and student workers. 

“How are we supposed to reach these goals if you don’t give us a chance?” the director of the School of Theater and Dance, H.D. Motyl said. They have been having problems with recruitment and enrollment for the school. 

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“A big issue for us is we had to cut recruitment and retention,” Motyl said. “It’s kind of this catch 22 or paradox, you’re going to take away the money for recruitment. So, we can’t recruit to get the enrollment up.”

Usually, the school would go to different conferences with representatives to recruit students. Now, due to a lack of funding, they cannot do that. According to Motyl, for the 2023-2024 school year, they got $75,865 to budget towards things like recruitment and productions. For this school year they got $0. 

So, the faculty and staff have been busy trying to recruit in different ways. 

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“We’re thinking about it as faculty, all of these alternative ways of doing recruitment. It takes away time they could be teaching or other forms of service,” Motyl said. 

And the pressure doesn’t stop at recruitment, they’ve had to change their whole plan they had for this season. 

“We had to rethink everything that we had planned, and we can do that by rethinking a budget and making it less,” Motyl said. “Then, we have to think about how that affects the educational mission we have. The productions we do aren’t just to do them, they’re a part of our educational directive.”

“I’ve noticed the strain it’s had on our productions, we had to cut down so much,” Ameriah Lockett, a sophomore majoring in musical theater who is also a student worker, said. “I’m currently cast in ‘The Lightning Thief’ as Grover, and we had to basically cut our entire set.”

The school has been scrambling to find funds elsewhere, and it has taken a toll. 

“No joke, it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning,” Motyl said. “It’s a lot of that, a lot of constantly thinking about where I can make money… it’s a lot more pressure on us.”

The funding they do have, for the most part, is in foundation accounts. These accounts are used to hand out scholarships to students. The school has no access to these funds.

“They’re all scholarships, we can’t touch them. There are very few that are there to just give us resources,” Motyl said. 

These resources would be used to fund the productions they plan to put on. With a lack of money, they’ve already had to cut back on their upcoming production of “The Lightning Thief”. They’ve also had to fire student workers to save on money. Now students, who were getting paid to do a job last year, are doing the same labor but for free. 

Students have noticed the changes, and they’re starting to get anxious.

 “As a student, I am nervous about it. I got very lucky to get a position here. But I know that next year I will not be able to come back to this job,” Lockett said. She currently works with Jaemin Park, an assistant professor at SIU who teaches lighting and sound design. Due to the cuts, she will have to find a new job before next school year. “And that is really sad, because I love working with Jaemin.”

The student’s grievances are not lost on Motyl. 

“It’s gotten to students. I mean, we have to say that we can’t have student workers. They know that there are issues there,” Motyl said. “If we don’t have student workers, they’re going to ask why. And, I have to tell them we have no money.”

If things continue this way, they may have to cut productions and performances. This would be detrimental to the school, according to Motyl. 

“If we can only do one show a year, one musical a year, no one will come here,” Motyl said. “That’s just not enough.”

After all of these complications, Motyl said he thinks there is a disconnection.

“I think that, yes, there is some type of disconnect. And, I’m not just talking for myself,” Motyl said. 

Motyl feels that like many arts, theater is usually overlooked by administration. In comparison to the sports that SIU plays, theater is nowhere near as funded. This can be disheartening, especially to students. But, Motyl says that theater is an essential aspect of SIU. 

“There’s more to this university than sports,” Motyl said. “We aren’t basketball players, we are not football players, but we are a part of this community,”

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