Framing in theater rehearsals

Abstract

This video-ethnographic workplace study documents a theater rehearsal process, which to date is an under-researched professional setting. More specifically, the study investigates the process in which actors and a director frame various contexts that together build the theatrical framework. Applying a conversation analytic method, the analysis follows actors and a director longitudinally as they frame a performance with respect to a single line in a script. The aim is to uncover how the participants develop the performance by framing various theatrical contexts in situated interactions and over time. The results show that the performance develops in a nonlinear manner, whereby social and psychological contexts are foregrounded first. These contexts are later backgrounded when the participants develop physical actions in the performance. In conceptualizing framing as a process of grounding, it can be seen that the participants collaboratively and interactionally add content to the script, and arrive at a mutual understanding by recycling and developing previously established framings. Negotiations of framings are joint and explicit, thus challenging a view of theater work that actors should not be overly conscious of their actions on the stage.