SMEs, IT, and the Third Space: Colonization and Creativity in the Theatre Industry

We examine how small and medium-sized, professional, nonprofit performing arts theatres in the US can improve the strategic use of information technology (IT), as well as other aspects of theatre management for large, commercial theatre productions in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. In this article we use the epistemology of the third space developed by Bhabha (1994) and extended by Frenkel (2008). Although both authors were discussing knowledge transfer, we use their conceptualizations to characterize and explore more deeply the transfer process of culture (and thereby useful practices and worthwhile lessons) from small and medium-sized professional, nonprofit theaters to large-scale commercial theatres. We include a discussion of Nonaka’s (1991) concept of ba, and how it relates to the third space. We specifically employ the metaphor of the third space developed by Bhabha (1994) to critique and understand the verbal and nonverbal cultural transmissions between small and large theatres. One of our contributions is to use the conceptualization and metaphor of the third space to understand the complex exchanges and relationships between small to medium-sized nonprofit professional theatres and large commercial theatres, and to identify what large commercial productions can learn from nonprofit theatres from these exchanges.