| The purpose of this study was to identify the epistemic or knowledge practices of theatre production professionals within the framework of cultural-historical activity theory. The script of the play was considered to be the principal mediating artefact used by theatre professionals to accomplish the object of producing the play.; Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 theatre production professionals on two separate productions of the same play. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Transcripts of the interviews and copies of some of the participants' scripts formed the data for analysis.; Data analysis comprised identifying (1) theoretical themes related to theatre production as practice or activity; (2) instances of the script in the role of mediating artefact; and (3) specific epistemic practices.; Seven epistemic practices were identified: reading, classifying and inscribing, gathering, representing, learning, remembering, and standardizing. The epistemic practices identified represent how theatre production professionals do their work. Epistemic practices are seen to be a subset of epistemic capital that theatre production professionals accumulate over time through formal education and professional work experience.; Four factors were found to affect the epistemic practices and the epistemic capital: the cultural-historical setting, "slip" time, professional roles, and the mediating artefact itself.; Activity theory could enhance research in Library and Information Science, especially for the ability to emphasize the role that documents play in people's working lives. The project-based, temporary nature of theatre work is depicted in a model of theatre as an accelerated activity system in which epistemic capital, epistemic practices, time and the situatedness of the activity are accounted for.; Keywords: epistemic practices, epistemic capital, information, theatre production, activity theory, script, mediating artefact. |
