Mary-Jayne Russell de Clifford: The challenges of being a deaf freelance artist

I recently had a discussion with some deaf freelance artists openly and honestly. We all have our own individual successes and ambitions but we also have challenges. In particular, these challenges can be relating to booking jobs, dealing with cancellations and the matter of what fee do we charge for our service in the first place.

To explain in depth, I would like to share some of my own examples. I won’t be revealing any names on order to protect everyone’s reputation but I do hope that by sharing this will help us all to resolve some tricky situations we encounter as self employed freelancers.

I am a deaf freelance artist and I work in varied roles as; a theatre facilitator, theatre-maker, consultant, mentor, actor, poet, storyteller, scriptwriter, producer, project manager and theatre director mainly with young people recently. I am proud of every achievement of my work but there are some barriers. Perhaps, reading this other freelancers will state that they have had similar experiences too.

One time, I was booked to visit a mainstream school for a meeting. Myself and my co-worker requested to do the meeting digitally but the school preferred us to be there in person in order to make some important arrangements. Now, my contract with the school meant my travel expenses would only cover up to £10 – this is something that couldn’t be changed.

I wasn’t too happy about this but I understood the importance of this meeting (from what I was told) and didn’t want to lose the job and so I agreed to drive the 3 hours to the school where we had the meeting. Imagine my bewilderment when the meeting only took 20 minutes!

The staff thanked us and guided us out of school and I left feeling confused and deflated. After another 3 hours drive back home, you can imagine what was going around in my head, “why couldn’t we have had that meeting online?!”

I have since requested that the school cover my full travel expense due to the short time I was actually required – this was not communicated clearly and if it was I wouldn’t have made such a lengthy journey. Clear communication is so important, but many things are missed in english through emails.

Myself and another deaf colleague also recently spoke about the wide variation of fees that deaf theatre makers, directors or consultants charge. I was surprised to find out that another friend charges double what I do a day, even though we work in the same area and have a similar amount of experience.

After discussing this with a trusted friend, I realised that I had been undercharging for my services and so with this new found confidence, I have started to become more assertive and I now set regular fees for my work. Of course, when companies have budgets or specific funds for projects this is fine but now when I am asked ‘what are your charges?’ I feel I can state these with confidence, instead of plucking a low number from thin air.

I also want to discuss how to overcome any issues that may arise from last-minute cancellations. We are aware that BSL/English interpreters give out terms and conditions regarding their cancellation fees. The NUBSLI website has good guidance online with an outline of cancellation fees which you can find here:

Guidance for freelance interpreters and translators

However, most deaf freelancers don’t have terms and conditions regarding cancellations (if you do, please share them as I would love to know) and myself and a colleague recently spoke about how this is perhaps something we should put in place for our own protection. This issue is relatively to do with lack of training and lack of access as we aren’t always aware of systems we can put in place to protect ourselves as self employed individuals. Normally we just tell each other our frustrations about losing jobs last minute.

However, we lose money, time and opportunities when we are given last-minute cancellations. When we are asked to pencil something down in our work calendar, are we meant to chase the company for confirmation or do we just wait? How long is the right amount of time?

Sometimes, I have been asked to do theatre work but I was already booked with a different company who then sent me a last-minute cancellation! I would then contact the second option to see if they still need or want my service. Sometimes they have already found someone else, but if I am lucky they will say they are delighted to have me as the vacancy is still available.

I wonder if there is a workshop or training available in BSL relating to creating terms and conditions for deaf freelancers and advice on how to manage cancellations? I would love to find out more about business terms as a deaf freelance artist.

Deaf freelance artists would like equal opportunities with hearing freelance artists, so the more barriers we can get over together the better. If you have any information on training available for deaf businesses or sole traders, please do share and I look forward to reading them.

Mary-Jayne Russell de Clifford is a professional drama scriptwriter, facilitator, and director, a BSL worship leader and trainer, a BSL story-teller, BSL poet and a mentor. Mary-Jayne has a degree in Theatre Arts, Education, and Deaf Studies. She worked with Deafinitely Theatre, Vamos Theatre, Taking Flight Theatre and currently re-establishing her theatre company, DeDrama (temporary name)

www.maryrdec.wixsite.com