Autonome Kunst? – Legitimität und institutioneller Wandel im deutschen Sprechtheater

In Boris Nikitin's production The audition (2015) at the Münchner Kammerspiele is not only a 'critical' art event in the sense of Institutional Critique, but also a 'real' audition situation. Represented here are all organizations and individual actors who, through their practices, re-produce the institution of German spoken theater on a daily basis: acting (high) schools, artists' associations, theaters, as well as professional and non-professional viewers. In a twofold interpretation of this production, the article therefore pursues the thesis that even the 'objects' and the practices of appraisal or criticism in this field are not autonomous but follow certain legitimacy principles. For this purpose, starting from the concept of the organizational field of Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, which once co-founded sociological neo-institutionalism, a theoretical frame of reference for the empirical investigation of theater as an institution is outlined. Furthermore, the institutionalization of the structural element "IVO" is traced and the presentation and evaluation practice of professional actors in the transition from study to work is analyzed on the basis of empirical 'data'. To illustrate the complex relationship between legitimacy and institutional change, the currently observed de-institutionalization of ethnicity serves.