Social Interaction in the Art of Acting: Forms and Phases

Creativity is here construed as an activity taking place in phases over time, one everywhere imbued with the social, whether the creator does much of the work alone as in fiction writing or with others where the creation itself is collaborative such as jazz improvisation. This paper considers the creation of theatrical roles, a domain in which some phases of the activity take place under solitary conditions and others involve face-to-face interaction. Grounded in a research review, the paper examines the phases of the creative process in scripted acting. It notes the kinds of social relationships in each, the roles of intention, reflection and spontaneity, the forms of interaction in terms of Schütz’s multiple realities and the ways in which those realities interact.