UCB Fires Its Head of People & Culture, Who Alleges Hostile Working Conditions
"Over the past year, I’ve witnessed and personally experienced behavior that makes me question exactly what your CEO believes about people and culture."
The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre parted ways this week with its Head of People & Culture, Solomon Hinton, according to an email Hinton sent to the company’s staff and teachers on Tuesday. “I want you all to know that your CEO is firing me for pushing back on unfair hiring and staffing processes,” he wrote. “Additionally, Mike and I have a fundamental disagreement on how the lowest wage earners who work in the theatre at UCB should be treated, which has fractured our relationship and made it increasingly difficult for me to do the work I told everyone I was hired to do during the last Town Hall meetings.”
Hinton was referring to Mike McAvoy, the former Onion owner/CEO who in 2022 purchased UCB alongside Jimmy Miller, founder of the talent management firm Mosaic, with backing from Elysian Park Ventures, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ venture capital arm. Neither McAvoy nor Hinton responded to requests for comment.
In the lengthy farewell email, Hinton alleged a series of mismanagement issues, encouraging UCB employees to request an all-hands meeting to discuss them. You can find the email in full below. I will briefly preface it by highlighting a few issues Hinton raises; then I’ll provide some context on UCB’s (relatively) new payment policy.
Allegations of Mismanagement and Misconduct
First, some background on Hinton’s own role. He joined UCB as its Head of People & Culture in September 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. In a January 2023 town hall meeting, he explained that his position encompassed hiring, talent onboarding and operations, organizational and culture design, staff performance and productivity, people investment and growth, and community safety and accountability, according to a slide deck attached in his farewell email.
That deck describes him as UCB’s point of contact for safety concerns. It also outlines the company’s DEI roadmap, including the expansion of its diversity program and the planned launch of a community standards panel.
“From day one in this role,” Hinton wrote in his farewell message, “I've said that my intention at UCB is to solve problems, build systems and processes that support a safe, diverse, inclusive culture, and leave things better than I found them.”
"Over the past year," he said later, "I’ve witnessed and personally experienced behavior that makes me question exactly what your CEO believes about people and culture."
As for the workplace issues Hinton raised: perhaps most importantly, he described “an uptick in outreach” from UCB staff with complaints about hostile working conditions, at least some of which concerned McAvoy “verbally berating staff in one-to-one conversations and in front of other staff, and disparaging them and their abilities to other staff members.”
McAvoy “dismissed” efforts to discuss anonymous HR complaints, Hinton wrote, adding that the company’s ownership and governance structure limited his ability to provide recourse.
"Over the past year, I’ve witnessed and personally experienced behavior that makes me question exactly what your CEO believes about people and culture."
UCB’s ownership and governance comes up again in a later section of the email, in which Hinton proposed a list of questions that staff might bring up at a hypothetical all-hands meeting. Specifically, he suggested that UCB staff explore an employee ownership model: “Would you be willing to explore recapitalizing UCB by transitioning a meaningful equity share to employee ownership – for financial equity participation and governance of UCB's mission?” the question reads. “Employee ownership will ensure governance that protects and honors the mission and commitment of those who've helped build the UCB community.”
Elsewhere in this section, Hinton indicated that McAvoy has slow-walked various People and Culture initiatives, including a wage increase policy for teachers and a budget for UCB’s diversity program. He also alluded to a lack of transparency in the theater’s operations, to the frustration of its staff.
“Why did you stop updating and sharing a Training Center and Theater business performance scorecard tracking student enrollments, ticket sales, and revenue with direct reports?” he suggested employees ask McAvoy. “Again, core staff feel frozen out with little insight into the current state of the business.”
About UCB’s Payment Policy
You can find Hinton’s full email below, and I’ll share more on this story as it develops. In the meantime, I thought I might also share UCB’s new talent payment policy, theoretically one of the major new initiatives by its new ownership. As outlined in an informational packet distributed to performers, the policy is effectively this: a 50/50 door split after the theater recoups costs.
Here’s what the document lays out, in a section titled “PAYMENT PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY”:
We are paying performers for the first time in our history as a way to compensate talent for their efforts and further align our interests. We will split ticket sales 50/50 with our performers after a set cost associated with operating the theatre are recouped.
Recoupable costs include rent & utilities as well as the direct costs incurred for show staff including the house manager, tech, box office, and security.
Non-recoupable costs pertain to overhead used to operate the theatre, including artistic directors, infrastructure investments and other operating costs. Note: Concession revenue will not be factored into the performer payment pool; it will be used to offset these non-recoupable costs and other expenditures.
The specific recoupment cost varies by theater. At the Franklin Avenue location in Los Angeles, UCB recoups the first 45 tickets (regardless of price, which ranges from $5 to $20) and splits the remainder. The equivalent number for the 14th Street location in New York City had yet to be determined when I received this document last year; a source who’s performed at the newly opened theater told me they have yet to receive any payment, possibly because their show hasn’t hit the necessary attendance threshold yet.
"Recoupment at UCB is higher than other theaters because we are covering costs to program our indie/experimental shows in late night slots, instead of an emphasis on only programming shows that are guaranteed to sell out."
Notably, the recoupment figure for UCB’s house teams is higher than that of its other programming. “The recoupment is higher to account for additional theater costs of coaches, directors, and a higher distribution of performer and student comps,” the policy states. (Under previous management, house team performers paid for coaches and directors out of their own pockets rather than their ticket sales.) “If there is a profit after the higher recoupment number, performers will be notified and paid accordingly.”
The policy acknowledges that UCB’s recoupment cost is relatively steep overall. “Recoupment at UCB is higher than other theaters,” it explains, “because we are covering costs to program our indie/experimental shows in late night slots, instead of an emphasis on only programming shows that are guaranteed to sell out.”
If you’ve been following the issue for a while, you might hear echoes of the previous management’s justification for not paying talent anything at all: UCB was a place where artists can make experimental work instead of commercial fare, they said, which was more valuable than any token sum they could pay. For Franklin Avenue shows that do sell more than 90 tickets, however, the new policy includes an incentive payment: an extra $100 for shows priced $5 to $10, and an extra $200 for shows priced $15 to $20.
Seth Simons
What To Make Of All This
Here I will do some light editorializing. While UCB certainly deserves credit for making efforts to finally comply with labor law and pay its workers, what this payment policy makes clear is that it is still very much a for-profit operation. This seems to me the most straightforward interpretation of the door split after recoupment: a means of making money more than a means of paying performers, whom it leaves on the hook for both the theater’s operating costs and any potential failures to market their shows.
This is actually a marked change from UCB’s previous ownership. While they weren't entirely honest, the UCB4 insisted again and again over the years that UCB was not designed to make money, that they specifically made no money from it, and indeed that the theater was basically a loss leader subsidized by the training center. (That training center is still selling classes, many of them online-only, at $500-$525 a pop.) Clearly that’s no longer the case; UCB's new owners are evidently after a return on their investment. Obviously that's their right and prerogative, but it's also something that the theater's workers should take into account as they chart their own path forward.
Frankly, I am also not convinced the payment policy even satisfies UCB’s obligations under the law. As I’ve written before, if house performers qualify as employees, and there is a sound argument that they do, then they are entitled to at least minimum wage—something that a door split after recoupment certainly does not guarantee.
This is a complicated question that I will look into for a later day. Suffice it to say for now that between this payment policy and the issues Hinton raised in his email, UCB workers cannot trust the theater’s owners to look after their own interests. What was true six years ago is still true today: they need to demand their own seat at the table.
Seth Simons
Okay, Here’s The Email
From: Solomon Hinton
Subject: Moving On...+ Some Unfinished Business
Hi Folks –
First, I want you all to know that your CEO is firing me for pushing back on unfair hiring and staffing processes.
Additionally, Mike and I have a fundamental disagreement on how the lowest wage earners who work in the theatre at UCB should be treated, which has fractured our relationship and made it increasingly difficult for me to do the work I told everyone I was hired to do during the last Town Hall meetings (pls see attached).
From day one in this role, I've said that my intention at UCB is to solve problems, build systems and processes that support a safe, diverse, inclusive culture, and leave things better than I found them.
My task is to hold myself and other company leaders accountable for addressing conditions that threaten the safety and well-being of our people and the health of the business.
It's also incumbent upon me to use my position to help right the ship by speaking up to challenge unhealthy power dynamics when things go off course.
Particularly concerning is that there has been a recent uptick in outreach to me from UCB staff sharing concerns about hostile working conditions due to what they have described as bullying, harassment, and micromanagement, including multiple anonymous AIR complaints, which your CEO has dismissed my efforts to discuss.
Because the ownership and governance structure here at UCB limits my options for recourse, I'm writing to ask you all to help me tie up unfinished business with a call for accountability and transparency.
I suggest you all request an All-Hands meeting. Please use this link to share questions and concerns about the current state of business and culture here at UCB, and I will share your feedback with any member of the UCB leadership team who is willing to consider: [link redacted]
In the spirit of leading with curiosity, a few items worth addressing with your CEO are suggested below:
1. Why have you not held an all-hands faculty + staff meeting or core staff meeting in over six months? The impact is that many staff feel frozen out with little insight into the current state of the business.
2. Why did you dismiss my efforts to discuss multiple AIR anonymous complaints about your behavior in creating a hostile workplace, including verbally berating staff in one-to-one conversations and in front of other staff, and disparaging them and their abilities to other staff members?
3. Why have you not approved a clear, consistent wage increase policy for teachers after having an Academic Committee available to help with this for a year?
4. Why did you stop updating and sharing a Training Center and Theater business performance scorecard tracking student enrollments, ticket sales, and revenue with direct reports? Again, core staff feel frozen out with little insight into the current state of the business.
5. Explain why you inserted inexperienced hires into Artistic Committee, Training Center Operations, and Theatre Operations roles without public job postings or hiring processes.
6. Explain why you have refused to engage, approve, or provide constructive feedback on key People & Culture deliverables, including a set of company values, a peer-based community disciplinary review process, and a diversity program budget and proposal including a mentoring program, learning labs, and performance showcase. We presented these programs during both Town Halls.
7. Would you be willing to explore recapitalizing UCB by transitioning a meaningful equity share to employee ownership – for financial equity participation and governance of UCB's mission? Employee ownership will ensure governance that protects and honors the mission and commitment of those who've helped build the UCB community. I have a contact at Project Equity who can walk you through financing options, conversion preparation, and the support they provide.
So, to be clear, I'm team UCB.
I took the People & Culture role here at UCB, believing it was a true leadership opportunity to partner with a CEO committed to building a culture of respect, transparency, inclusion, and growth.
I still believe that leadership is about investing in people—leading by values, goals, and consistent communication about what is expected from each coworker and how it contributes to the company's success.
I believe building a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture takes more than diversity coupons and hangouts. It requires doing the hard work of ensuring that how you operate and treat coworkers on the inside sets everyone up to succeed.
Over the past year, I’ve witnessed and personally experienced behavior that makes me question exactly what your CEO believes about people and culture.
That said, the commitment to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion here at UCB remains unfinished business.
I move on from working with you all with gratitude. I'm grateful that I was able to pilot culture-building programs, including:
•Intentional conflict resolution between UCB community members and Artistic and Academic leadership
•Open House Community Nights @ UCB
•UCB University (launch delayed by CEO)
•Diversity Outreach: Community Alliance Partnerships with Spectrum Laboratory, Opening Act, Harlem Dramatic Writers Workshop, and Egg & Spoon Theatre
•Structured job interviewing to minimize bias in hiring (circumvented by CEO)
•Semi & Annual Performance Development feedback (rolled back by CEO)
•Community Standards Committee: Inclusive, Participatory Community Governance and Justice (downgraded by CEO)
To those who accepted my invites to chat and collaborate, thank you for allowing me to learn from you and with you.
Based on the loyalty, commitment, and love for UCB expressed by countless teachers and students I've connected with personally, UCB deserves sound, accountable, mission-driven leadership.
Finally, to all of you who get out of bed every morning so that you can be a part of something greater than the sum of its parts, thank you for letting me ride shotgun through your UCB journeys…I wish you all the fulfillment, growth, and success you deserve.
Abundantly,
Solomon
Thank you for reading! If you would like to discuss your own experiences working or performing at UCB, please email me anytime.
