Overview

This book offers the first look at corporate theatre, a global management trend that uses dramatic techniques in workplace learning. Drawing on a decade of research with artists, consultancies, drama schools, and multinational firms in India and across the Global South, Sarah Saddler provides a fascinating perspective on why theatre and performance are finding new legitimacy in corporate economies under late capitalism. Chapters spotlight how theatre is wielded by management to advance urgent corporate agendas, while examining corporate theatre’s impact on broader social transformations, such as the theatrical dimensions of management and shifting creative horizons for performance practitioners. Through vivid vignettes, Sarah Saddler argues that corporate theatre has become a mode of physical and psychological conditioning used to encode the cultural dimensions of global capitalism. Simultaneously, she uncovers how corporate theatre employs humor tactics that enable individuals to navigate systems of power, becomes a remedy for corporations grappling with the crushing competition of capitalism, and offers a critical perspective on artistic agency within the creative economy. This book will be of interest to readers across the interdisciplinary humanities including theatre and performance studies, anthropology, sociology, and South Asian studies.

Full Product Details

9781032421421

Table of Contents

Reviews

"Performing Corporate Bodies is an exciting contribution to anthropology and South Asian studies. Saddler’s sensitive exploration of the uses of theatre in corporate training programmes in India provides novel insights into global business cultures and their social implications in postcolonial contexts. Carol Upadhya, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru Is corporate theatre a sophisticated tool for organizations to control and constrain employees or is it a site of resistance and rebellion from neoliberal capitalism? Saddler’s answer is ""yes, and."" It is both and more and this lovely work that explores that complexity illustrated by ethnographic data from around the world – and perhaps most intriguingly from outside of Europe and the United States. A must read for every serious consumer of theatre and organizations. Steven S. Taylor, Foisie School of Business, Worcester Polytechnic Institute"

Author Information

Sarah Saddler is an Assistant Professor of Theater in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College CUNY, where she teaches courses on arts management and leadership, applied theatre, theatre history, and improvisation.

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