Improvising in Research: Drawing on Theater Practices

Qualitative research about organizations is usually done with a carefully planned approach. However, surprises may happen in the actual engagement, often leading to key insights. By engaging more with such surprising moments, one can gain much richer insight from informants. Inspired by forum theater and improvisation methods, we describe various methods that might enable new interactions demanding mutual spontaneity. Theater improvisation induces fiction, such as playing imagined characters. By doing so, people respond with their real experiences, which become a gateway to working with themes that might be difficult to approach otherwise. The methods, from almost two decades of the authors’ experiences, stimulate stakeholders to share perspectives. They also work well for exploring power relations, shadow themes, meanings, and conversations that go against formal ideologies. The methods invite reflexivity among all involved. The work with theater improvisation methods is understood from a perspective of complex responsive processes of relating. In this view, the researcher is one participant among others, and insights emerge as experience for the researcher.