The stage director had set out the overall amount of time necessary for the play to berehearsed and defined when it would be presented to the general public. He had alsodefined the rehearsal schedule, delimiting the scenes that would be worked on, withwhom and with what type of props. Although actors and technicians were asked tomake different performing, lighting, costumes, and sound propositions all along therehearsal process, Meadow expressed the final decision when it came to choosing

Whensystematically conducted for all groups of participants, task description underlinesthat there is sometimes a huge gap between an aesthetic and the actual division oflabor.

empirical research

It thus reveals the social drama of work (Hughes 1993) in theater but pointsto the transferability of some concepts to other worlds of art

It brings to light the type of relationships needed forparticipants to be able to cooperate

thus set back into questionthe conventional three-category typology restin

This paper aims to show that the symbolic interactionist perspective developedby Becker for artistic activities (1982) and adopted for the study of a theater hall andcompany improves our understanding of theater activity.

heater. But what exactly is thisactivity? How can it be socially defined?

All of them are active members of the CircleTheatre (referred to here as the Circle or CT)ii ; a theater company founded more thanthirty years ago by Alex Meadow a stage director and since then, artistic director.

This paper shows how conducting the ethnographic study of a theater halland company can help define theater activity.