‘The industry will tell you what you’re good for:’ theatrical typecasting, information embodiment, and body capital
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31ISIC65287Keywords:
information behavior, information embodiment, body capital, theatre, typecastingAbstract
Introduction. Theatrical typecasting is a commonly used practice in the entertainment industry. Job-seeking performers are influenced by the appearance-based culture surrounding role types. Typecasting practices categorise according to physical characteristics such as body size, race, or gender. The industry standard structure of typecasting offers an opportunity to understand the information embodiment of performers as they navigate a precarious labor market. This information embodiment amid typecasting can be further understood via the critical-sociological notion of body capital (Shilling, 1991).
Method. Ten pilot unstructured interviews (Rinaldo & Guhin, 2022; Swain & King, 2022) were conducted with professional musical theatre performers in New York City. The conversations held with performers detail the overall information behaviour of theatre performers as they sustain careers in the arts and grow their creative skills.
Analysis. Three of ten interviews (those that were held within the timeframe of this writing) were analysed deductively within the framings of information embodiment and body capital.
Results. Preliminary results show that participants are aware of their embodiment of information as it conveys both type and subjectively desirable physical characteristics. They make strategic role-seeking decisions based on information about type as it is conveyed via industry members such as other actors or casting directors. Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of cultural capital along with library and information scholars’ work on information embodiment (Olsson & Lloyd, 2017), can be leveraged to understand the aesthetic and social processes influencing the information behaviour of musical theatre performers.
Conclusion. Future research directions, including ethnography or participatory observation, are discussed.
References
Actors’ Equity Association. (2020). Actors’ equity association releases second-ever diversity and inclusion report. http://web.archive.org/web/20201121023753/https://www.actorsequity.org/news/PR/DandIReport2020/
Actors’ Equity Association. (2023). Auditions and job interviews. https://actorsequity.org/resources/producers/casting-call-how-to
Bates, M. J. (2018). Concepts for the study of information embodiment. Library Trends, 66(3), 239–266. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0002
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Greenwood.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). Artistic taste and cultural capital. In J. C. Alexander & S. Seidman (Eds.), Culture and society (pp. 205–215). Cambridge University Press.
Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. MIT Press.
Brinkmann, S. (2020). Unstructured and Semi-Structured Interviewing. In P. Leavy (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 277–299). Oxford University Press.
Donovan, R. (2023). Introduction: The broadway body. In R. Donovan (Ed.), Broadway bodies: A critical history of conformity (p. 0). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197551073.003.0001
Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4).
Kukkonen, I. (2021). Physical appearance as a form of capital: Key problems and tensions. In O. Sarpila, I. Kukkonen, T. Pajunen, & E. Åberg (Eds.), Appearance as capital (pp. 23–37). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-708-120210002
Kuric Kardelis, S. (2023). The Body of a performer as a form of capital: Age, gender and aesthetics in theatre work. Cultural Sociology, 17(2), 159–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755211070142
Olsson, M. & Lloyd, A. (2017). Being in place: Embodied information practices. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science. https://informationr.net/ir/22-1/colis/colis1601.html
Loesberg, J. (1993). Bourdieu and the Sociology of Aesthetics. ELH, 60(4), 1033–1056.
Medaille, A. (2010). Creativity and craft: The information‐seeking behavior of theatre artists. Journal of Documentation, 66(3), 327–347. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411011038430
Olsson, M. R. (2010a). All the world’s a stage – The information practices and sense-making of theatre professionals. Libri. 60(3), 241–252. https://doi.org/10.1515/libr.2010.021
Olsson, M. R. (2010b). The play’s the thing: Theater professionals make sense of Shakespeare. Library & Information Science Research, 32(4), 272–280.
Olsson, M. R. (2012). Chapter 2 ‘Ciphers to this great accompt’ – The Shakespearian social sense-Making of theatre professionals. In G. Widén & K. Holmberg (Eds.), Library and information science (pp. 17–42). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1876-0562(2012)0000005004
Olsson, M. R. (2013). Gently to hear, kindly to judge: The affective information practices of theatre professionals and journalists. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, 18(3). https://informationr.net/ir/18-3/colis/paperC22.html
Rinaldo, R., & Guhin, J. (2022). How and why interviews work: Ethnographic interviews and meso-level public culture. Sociological Methods & Research, 51(1), 34–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124119882471
Shilling, C. (1991). Educating the cody: Physical capital and the production of social inequalities. Sociology, 25(4), 653–672.
Shilling, C. (2012). The body and social theory (Third edition). Sage.
Swain, J., & King, B. (2022). Using informal conversations in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, 16094069221085056. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221085056
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Julia Anne Maxwell
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
