How Support Personnel Shape Artworks: the case of stage managers

Abstract

It is commonly accepted in the sociology of art that artworks are created in collaboration. In an attempt to take artworks seriously from a sociological perspective, this paper explores how the collaboration of all the members of an art world affect the artwork that is created. By employing in-depth interviewing, participant observation, and qualitative content analysis, I focus on one kind of support personnel in the theater art world - stage managers. I find two distinct ways in which stage managers affect the artistic outcomes of plays: making artistic choices and affecting the work that others do through non-artistic inputs.