San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
‘Past five months have been a total emotional roller coaster’
Six months after everything shut down in the arts world, Sean Fanning still cannot believe what the coronavirus has done to the industry he loves so much. “Everything just stopped dead in its tracks,” said Fanning, a freelance scenic designer whose work has been seen in countless theatrical and live entertainment productions in San Diego County. “It’s absolutely bizarre to go from this pressurized system of collaboration and creation — which for me, had been a nonstop job for over a decade — to a complete halt.” The harsh reality of the shutdown hit him hard and fast.
“In addition to the obvious financial strain of losing all the jobs, March brought a roller coaster of depression, anxiety and grief about our field, and a feeling that I had spent much of my life training for a job that seemed to no longer be essential,” said Fanning, who answered questions via email because he is hard of hearing.
Since March, Fanning, 37, has been among the legions of arts workers whose lives were upended by the pandemic, leaving lifelong careers in tatters and lives hanging in the balance. As a freelancer, Fanning is mostly under contract on a show-by-show basis and not considered a full-time employee. He was, however, able to get unemployment — plus the $600 federal benefit — because one of the jobs he was under contract for classified him as an employee, as required by the “gig worker bill,” popularly known as AB5.
“Of course, personal
finances were the biggest initial worry,” he said, adding that the anxiety is compounded by the “many lingering questions about the future of the theater industry and the fate of the companies around which I’ve formed my entire career.”
In mid-march, Fanning and his fellow crew members were one day away from opening “La Cage Aux Folles” at Cygnet Theatre, where he had been on contract as scenic and project designer for the production. At the same time, also at Cygnet, he was in the last phase of creating the scenic design for August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running.” Not too far away, at San Diego REP, he was in the early stages of design work for what would have been the theater’s summer musical, “On Your Feet.”
All that — and more — evaporated. Just like that.
“The past five months have been a total emotional roller coaster,” he said via email in August. “The combination of my field being utterly eviscerated by this pandemic, the worries about the future, events in the news and media, and the feeling of isolation and communication barriers have all created this perfect storm. The only way I’ve found forward is to take things one day at a time, one challenge at a time, and try and hang onto hope in places I never thought to look. Painting provides me with joy. Being out in nature, and getting away from screens, helps me see a larger picture than myself or my problems. Reconnecting with family, all of those things are deeply important.”
It helps, too, that he’s had support from friends and family, especially his wife, a research coordinator at the Hubbs-seaworld Research Institute whose job has been deemed “essential.”
“Together, and with the help of our respective families, we have somehow been holding it all together,” said Fanning, a Mira Mesa resident who moved to San Diego from San Francisco in 2005 to pursue a master’s degree in scenic design for theater, TV and film at San Diego State University.
A big part of “holding it all together” has been keeping busy.
“I feel like I’ve been several different people during this pandemic,” he said. “In the beginning of the shutdown, I focused on restoring and archiving my scale models from the ‘project graveyard’ and did a bit of remodeling and repair I had been putting off in the studio.
“While some businesses were still hanging on in March and April, I did some part-time freelance drafting for architectural lighting and residential projects. Once those jobs began to dry up, I shifted my focus towards a passion that I haven’t had time to pursue in almost 20 years: fine art and painting. I’ve since created five canvas pieces — two of which were commissioned works. Similarly, I’m a guitarist as a hobby and have used some of my time to get more practice in. Now I’m working to prepare for an adjunct teaching job at Mesa College and keep the house together for the essential worker when she comes home. Finding a routine and focus has been absolutely imperative to get through this bizarre time.”
For someone who’s used to working all the time, this down time has left him with many things racing through his mind.
“The first concern is the future, and the hardest part has been planning for that future,” Fanning said. “I’m so used to having design jobs lined up six to 10 months in advance, and normally, I can look at a calendar and know pretty much what I’m going to be doing a half year at a time. When I first started freelancing full-time, after leaving my job as Resident Design Assistant at the Old Globe some five and a half years ago, I wanted to find a way to live solely on the income from my art. I would juggle anywhere from two to five shows in my head at a time, all with staggered deadlines, in perpetuity. A dozen or so shows per year.
It sounds a little nuts, but I had gotten it down to a healthy routine. Living and working in the moment, but always looking ahead, and pushing forward. This pandemic has cut all of that short.”
If he had to look for a silver lining, Fanning said, he’s learned a lot about himself and has found a new way to look at life.
“I found an inner well of resilience I didn’t know I had until it was put to the test,” he said. “I grew to appreciate my wife, my family and my friends at a much deeper level. I discovered that for all the things I love about theater, I’m not entirely happy with the economic inequality that comes with it. When I was stuck home for months, I realized in the flurry of projects how much gas I was using, how much I was spending on design material, and how little I had really saved from theater jobs. Somehow, I would like to find a way to change this.”
For now, though, he longs for the day he can return to theater and all the things he misses about it.
“I really miss the collaboration with directors and other designers,” he said. “I miss bringing a rendering or a scale model of an idea into a discussion and feeling this power of being able to affect how a production will take hold of an audience . ... I miss the smell of lumber, of opening a can of slightly old paint, the sound of sizzling bacon when someone welds a set piece together. I miss being in an actual theater, dressing a set, watching it light up, hearing an orchestra or an original score play for the first time. I miss getting beers with the creative team after a hard weekend of second guessing ourselves and realizing we had it right the first time. I guess it’s not any one thing I miss, it’s the whole experience.”
All that talk makes him hopeful of the day it all returns to normal, whatever that is.
“I absolutely hope that theater comes back.i dream that when it does, we also see the manifestation of many important conversations that have been happening about equity in our field — both economic but also about race and representation. I hope that I can continue to diversify my skill set, and continue expanding into other fields so that I can plan for the future. I hope I can continue to grow as an artist and human being.”
“Together, and with the help of our respective families, we have somehow been holding it all together.”