Since 2014 I have conducted over 100 interviews with craftspeople in Polish public theatres – drama, puppet and musical theatres – among them there were opera houses with over a thousand employees as well as small town puppet theatres.
This group comprised metalworkers, carpenters, modelers, painters, costume makers, puppet makers, shoemakers, upholsterers, make-up artists, wig makers, as well as sound and light technicians, dressers, stage assemblers and prop masters. I have been investigating the ways in which craftspeople, positioned at the lowest level in the social hierarchy in theatres, perceive the changes in the management methods, production process and social relations in their institutions, due to the political and economic transformation in 1989.
