How Support Personnel Shape Artworks: the case of stage managers

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the link in this record.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