State and Independent Theatres as Organisations: Positioning and Development Strategies

The paper analyzes the principles of organization of theatrical activity in state and independent theaters. Fourteen interviews with representatives of state and independent theaters were conducted, based on which it became clear how theaters correlate the creation of creativity and orientation to commercial success. At the moment, the state theater is experiencing hard times, for example, the average salary in Moscow theaters is lower than the average salary in the region. The state realizes the need to invest in the cultural capital of the population, but these sums are not effectively spent. At the same time, there are more and more independent theaters that are not subsidized by the state. The work aims to explore how the commercial and creative positioning of theaters will relate to the presence or absence of state support. The work considered Giddens' structuration theory to link action and structure, Fligstein's field theory and explored the role of the state in his cultural-political approach to show how through norms the state is able to influence organizations. We were then presented with an ecological approach to the consideration of organizations. In order to move on to the separation of the commercial and the creative there was an appeal to the concept of worlds according to Boltanski and Thévenot. At the end, we considered aspects specifically related to the organization of the theater: such as its structure, its orientation towards the production of art objects and its interaction with the audience, as well as the sociology of the theater. State theaters resemble bureaucratic organizations, it was confirmed that indeed the theaters have a hierarchy and a clear distribution of responsibilities, the artistic director can “break out” of this picture, especially if he is a well-known and respected figure. Such theaters are indeed institutionalized in the field, but their success depends on their own creative merit. Funding helps the theaters themselves to be guided by a creative logic, but the success of a production is measured as a combination of the creative side and the commercial side. State theaters, due to available support, are not as interested in commercial success as independent theaters. Independent theaters will have two development strategies, either to remain relatively “niche” or to strive for a wide audience and the necessary institutionalization. Independent theaters do target state theaters, but not as those dependent on state support, but as the most successful organizations in the field. The desire to become a state theater comes from the desire to obtain funding to support their operations. A limitation of the study may be the bias of the sample towards representatives of independent theaters. Also, the theaters themselves may belong to theaters of different types (drama theater, puppet theater, etc.), which could also prevent more accurate conclusions regarding the development strategies of theaters. The prospect of this work could be a separate study of the internal organization of specific theaters, a case study of the theater, which would explain the interaction between the participants of the theater.