Strategy of the theatrical business in the Madrid comedy corrals: Contribution of account books and other sources of documentation (1700-1744).

Abstract

The objective of this investigation is to analyse the accounting books of the theatrical business of the “Corrales de Comedias” in the period of 1700 -1744 kept in the Archive of the Villa de Madrid, which has been located in the Conde-Duque barracks since the 1990s. The new absolute hypothesis that arises is to demonstrate that the managers of the old comedy corrals in Madrid, in order to survive in a crisis environment, developed a long-term value creation strategy and a strategic management and social responsibility system whose characteristics replicated, with great precision, the novel proposals of the Balanced Scorecard. The research method has been the consultation of documentary sources of the period 1699-1719 and the accounting books of the corrals of comedies that are kept in the Archive of the Villa of Madrid, as well as the works of British researchers John E. Varey and Charles Davis. This study tries to fill some limitations of previous works by analysing data that has never been published before. Research shows that accounting books are much more than an ordered set of figures and data; they are the demonstration of how the civil managers of the corrals transcended the merely accounting to delve into areas of personnel management, control of theatrical innovation and analysis of audience satisfaction.