Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work

The Iterative Structure of

Play Production

The realization that rehearsal, the primary activity of play

production, has a structure similar to certain business process-

es, especially agile software development, launched our

research project. We focused on the People’s Light and Theatre

Company because of its emergent approach, and because Lee’s

20-year affiliation with the company provided access to work

often shielded from outside observers. To be sure, other the-

atres operate in somewhat different ways. The emergent man-

agement and directing style of People’s Light, as well as its res-

ident company approach,

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make it somewhat unusual. But the

methods ...