Practicing Human Dignity: Ethical Lessons from Commedia dell’Arte and Theater

Our approach is action research oriented, as we are participant observers in the processes described here. For instance, Leonardo de Colle is a professional actor of the Piccolo Teatro of Milan with more than two decades of experience, and a teacher of the theater’s International Academy of Commedia dell’Arte directed by Ferruccio Soleri, giving classes in Italy and abroad. He has been performing in various roles in “Arlecchino Servitore Di Due Padroni,” the show directed by Giorgio Strehler since 1947 continuing the Italian tradition of Commedia dell’Arte that has been represented over a thousand times in theaters all around the world including Moscow, Vienna, Beijing, Paris, Auckland, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and New York. Arlecchino is, in fact, the Italian theater show most seen in the world (http://​www.​piccoloteatro.​org/​pages/​la-storia-del-piccolo-teatro-di-milano/​giorgio-strehler) and is currently staged again in Milan for the 2015–2016 season. After having many informal discussions around our common interests for theater and business ethics over the years, we first conceived the first draft of this article after a weekend of brainstorming in Verona in October 2014. Leonardo is also the brother of Simone de Colle, who along with Bidhan Parmar had the experience of being a student in the Darden theater course. Both now use variations of these exercises and techniques in their own teaching at graduate business schools. Parmar has created a set of theater-relevant techniques and exercises aimed at the promotion of human dignity in the course described here as one on collaboration. In addition, we have examined the self-reports of well over 600 students with significant managerial experience from the Darden courses on what they have learned in the course. Over the ensuing years after the students have finished the course, we have had extensive conversations with many of these former students about the applicability of these ideas to their current organizations.