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The Politics of Performance in Organizational Theatre-Based Training and Interventions

University of St. Thomas, USA

Steven S. Taylor

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA

Linda Houden

dor and associates, inc.

In this article, we first ‘set the stage’, taking our focus as theatre inorganizations, in contrast to the more traditional approach within the field of organizational studies of the use of ‘theatre’ as a metaphorical means of making sense of organizational life (organizations astheatre). More specifically, we examine the phenomenon of theatrebased training and interventions. However, we move beyond the practitioner-oriented ‘how-to’ understanding of theatre-based training, instead undertaking a more critical examination of the phenomenon. We analytically look ‘behind the curtain’, exposing the ‘politics of performance’ in theatre-based training and interventions by considering who controls the script and who controls the role in a performance. Lastly, we close with an ‘offer’ to the organization studies scholar — similar to the kind of ‘offer’ found in improvisational theatre. We offer a Boalian perspective of organizational theatre. We intentionally mean to be provocative by using Boal’s language (for example, ‘theatre of the oppressor’ to describe more corporate-controlled performances and ‘liberation of the spectator’ to describe more worker-controlled performances); yet, we firmly believe that the Boalian perspective may offer an ‘other’ way of looking at organizational theatre — particularly, the politics of performance in organizational theatre.

Key Words: organizational theatre • training and development • organizational aesthetics • critical management studies

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