Master Arts and Cultural Management: Liv Eirin Francis - Memories

The Chinese musical theater market is growing. Liv Eirin Francis is playing a part in this: She brings German-language musical productions to China—Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. She recently founded her own production company together with a colleague.

She used to be in the spotlight herself. Her repertoire included, among others, “Cats,” “Chess,” “Les Misérables,” “Elisabeth,” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” In 2009, she appeared on stage in Oslo as Grizabella in “Cats.” One song is closely associated with her stage career: “Memories,” the great classic from “Cats.”

Francis initially completed her musical theater training at the Bårdar Akademiet in Oslo and subsequently at the Stella Academy in Hamburg. In 2012, she performed in “Les Misérables” in Tromsø. At the same time, a new path began to take shape: A Norwegian entertainment company was seeking assistance in organizing entertainment productions on cruise ships and at vacation resorts. Liv Eirin Francis, who had initially worked there as a singer, gradually took on new responsibilities. She organized auditions, put together ensembles, and developed creative content for clients. Then her boss had to step away. The employee became a manager. Suddenly, she even became the head of a company with a substantial budget and about 140 employees. The company was growing, and the shows ran on a tight schedule. Artistic direction, choreography, costumes, technical operations, transportation, and organization all had to work in perfect harmony.
Then the curtain fell: COVID-19. Enter: reduced work hours. For Liv, too. She worked as a geriatric caregiver; she had many encounters that moved her deeply. She cared for people who had contracted COVID-19 and were living in isolation. Then came the big question: What would happen next, once the pandemic was over?
After about 20 years in the entertainment business, she begins to think about a new path. Through a friend, she learns about the part-time master’s program in Arts and Cultural Management at Leuphana Professional School. “Learning has always been part of my professional career. I really wanted to go back to school,” says the manager and artist.

With this master’s degree, Liv Francis can combine her many years of practical experience with academic concepts. “I had simply made many decisions based on instinct before,” she says. The program helps her place her experiences with leadership, organization, and corporate culture within a theoretical framework: “I was missing the theories behind the practice.” Her thesis also tied back to her professional past. Liv Eirin Francis examined why some shows resonate more deeply with their audiences than others.
To do this, she conducted interviews with people involved in shows on cruise ships and analyzed the conversations using thematic analysis. The focus is on what’s known as “audience engagement”—the question of how deeply the audience is drawn into the experience of a show. “Today, I place the things I see in an academic context—in relation to what I’ve read and learned. Through my studies, I’ve also learned a lot about different cultural practices, which is very helpful in my international work,” she says. Another valuable asset is the network she built while pursuing her part-time degree. “I’ve met some incredibly fascinating people, and through these exchanges, I’ve learned a great deal for my own work.”
Today, she is a successful manager with a deep passion for musicals. Through her company, she creates for people exactly what she used to sing about: Memories.