The impacts of phenomenal increase of public supports to the arts since the late 1980s have been most pronounced in contemporary theatre. The changes observed in the Japanese theatre world can be meaningfully conceptualized in terms of "structuration of organizational field" proposed by Paul DiMaggio (1983, 1991). The cases of field structuration reported by DiMaggio also provide materials for a comparative analysis. After sketching out the expansion of state support and consequent changes in the theatre world, this paper proposes a preliminary framework for the comparative study.