Theatre is a prominent institution in the way of human life. It has been with human beings since the dawn of our species, in mediums such as spoken word, cave paintings, and ritualistic ceremony or a traditional Hakka. We seem to respect theatre in the professional sense and honor the wisdom Aristotle’s Poetics, Stanislavski, and even Beckett’s literature have to offer about the subject. Yet, we seem to cycle around the idea that the arts, especially theatre, is not warranted as a subject to be taught in school, nonetheless even funded, and be looked down upon at an amateur level. Maybe not, I could just be starting shit.
Dare I say anything else about the public education sector would need an entirely different podcast, therefore I will speak directly to my point. Theatre, and the arts in general, is beneficial, and crucial to the education of a student, and the well being of a person in whole, even throughout adulthood, and is an integral part of the human psyche, and a community.
Performance and arts are in our DNA, it’s why we gossip so much! And listen to so many podcasts, and songs, and watch hours of shows and movies! It’s a good thing! And it should be supported, and normalized, and all the good things. It’s a thing that we humans have developed in order to form communities and societies which is why we get so engrossed, entranced, and engaged in performances and why it moves us so. It’s not the pulling of a praise by the performer, but a giving of someones work, time, their art, their mind, their words, their hard work you know.
Without theatre, without drama, life would be dull wouldn’t you say?
According to AmercianTheatre.org, I know a pretty biased site right) But they sourced and referenced all their researched links into a nice easy bibliography so I didn’t have to do it, I could just click on each link to check its credibility instead of scouring the internet myself. So you can do the same, I’ve copied their link in this episodes description, so you can check them out for yourself, go nuts! And thank you Americantheatre.org. Awesome job.
They summarized the learnings and I mean, I gotta say, it’s pretty self explanatory, and I can see why these are the results, like obviously but it’s imperative to reinforce this knowledge in order to broaden our education. So, they, them, the people who studied the effects of theatre and performance on students and people, say “Theatre develops cognitive ability, boosts concentration, builds critical thinking skills, expands verbal skills, improves word decoding, observation skills, collaboration skills, increase empathy, raises social tolerance and emotional regulation, it encourages participation and promotes the acceptance of new people and ideas. It develops fine and gross motor skills, refines hand eye coordination, and raise confidence, it boosts creativity, helps with their educational subjects, like math and literacy. It reduces the rate of drop outs, and increases enrollment in higher education.”
So clearly, we should all go audition for our local improv troupes. Maybe, Just you. haha.
Like I said, it is kind of like “duh,” when you read it, but maybe not to everyone. So I’m sorry if I offended if you were surprised by any of that. Theatre, performance, acting, improve especially, is a skill, like a muscle, it uses parts of your brain that have to be refined and programmed to work that way, like a carpenter is to their tools. So the more you use it, the more you do it, the better you become, naturally.
Victoria Forester said quote:
“Raw talent only gets you so far in this old world and the rest is a whole lot of practice, persistence, and perspiration.” End quote. (She and I have a thing for alliteration).
Theatre and literature is a way to build up cognitive thinking skills and therefore creates skills of conflict resolution, negotiation, and overall communication skills. And those skills are what now makes the world go round. I’m not saying let’s put a theatre major in the role of a hostage negotiator just to try it out, no that’s a straw man argument. I’m saying that skills learned in theatre are transferable to real life. Creative thinking and collaborative efforts, enunciating and thinking of creative ways to express ideas, these are skills necessary to promote businesses and excel in influencing. Police departments use actors to play out scenarios as part of their training, in order to prepare themselves for real life situations. They’re called crisis actors, (but let’s not use the negative misinformed connotation of that word to delineate the importance of these actors training police departments). Maybe they need more of that training but that’s for another podcast.
Performance is important to us humans as a whole, it is important to our mental health and our way of expressing our existence.
An Australian production have researched this topic and concluded that quote “Theatre in Education allows students to explore challenging social scenarios and vulnerable emotions in a safe and supportive environment. Performances can help to develop empathy for the experiences of others and explore diverse perspectives. Students can witness a range of possible strategies being played out and use critical thinking to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies and apply them to their own lives.” End quote. (The Link for that is also in the episodes description). Again, theatre seems to be very important in a person emtional development and intellectual ability to be around others. This is the same for dancing, or being in a book club, or a knitting club. The active method of gathering and talking, grouping up to accomplish a bigger task together, and having your success be shared and awarded by your peers. It sounds like theatre is active education. All the World’s a stage right? Is that why they call it the operating theatre? Or the theatre of war? Or why politicians seem to want to monologue?
I mean in general, whenever I hear about budget cuts for teachers, or for public school, or even raising questions about the teaching methods of teachers and the institution, I have but one question that pounds my brain: Why wouldn’t we want our children, our citizens, to be the smartest people, to be cognitive critical thinkers, to be eccentric, and inventive. I mean, I know why, there is a whole conspiracy about it and the more we turn over the years the more I turn over to that idea, maybe they want us all dumb so we just go along on this ‘snow piercer’ ride.
Theatre and performance is a way to thrash out just that idea, a way to farce situations and events, parody the unbelievable, and express ideas and imaginations. Literature is a way to discuss ideologies, debate opinions, and constructively come to a decision. I think about the letters the founding fathers made to each other, like Benjamin Franklin shared, how much knowledge and wisdom was passed in their daily conversations that only was highlighted by the history pages. I think about the plays Aristophanes or Shakespeare wrote in order to say something about their society, that couldn’t or wasn’t being said publicly. This continues today with things like Michael Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen with their documentaries, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and SNL with their satirical commentary on current events, and the numerous blogs and podcasts by media and intellectual giants that serve to educate the masses via podcasts, blogs, videos, and the such, like Armchair Expert, Khan Academy, learn german podcasts, History podcasts, Behind the bastards, True crime, Nature documentaries, I mean the list is endless.
We are in the information age, and being in it, if you aren’t overloading on information in the forms of five different mediums, having your ear holes plugged by content and your eyeballs glazing at a screen giving you information, are you even living, bruh? I mean it’s 2022 people, get your information and misinformation. (See what I did there?) Maybe.
Alright alright, back to the point, to the point no faking, Theatre is a good thing and should be practiced by all. Seeing, watching, partaking, reading it, all of it. Debate class, speech class, AV club, these are the things I talk too and support when I say theatre and I don’t mean to exclude them I am just conglomerating them into one word. Regardlessly, theatre and clubs are imperative to our understanding of our experiences, our lives, and our decisions. A 2011 study from Brainstorm Productions says, quote, “Forum theatre is empowering for youth in that it allows them to speak out about their ideas and experiences of the world, and their perceptions of reality, through improvised drama. Through improvisation of actual past events students have experienced, they can experiment with attitudes and roles different from one’s own, in the safe and fictional world of drama, which allows ‘distance’ from an issue and the opportunity to view the situation differently.” End quote.
Another study from 2019 from inlyinsights.org says quote “Science has proven that when we sing, our neurotransmitters connect in new and different ways. Endorphins are released, making us healthier, happier, and more creative. Singing together has been a part of tribal music for thousands of years and still today provides environments in which we can form strong bonds and trust in one another.” End quote.
So again, I emphasize my point, theatre, singing, performance, art, is a prominent institution in the way of human life and an integral part of the human psyche, and a community. It should be supported, promoted, and participated in by all in order to strengthen trust, build community, foster relationships, and used as a way to forum conversations and discussions in order to resolute peacefully, and promote a system of education and continued growth.
Long live the Art.
Links to Research:
Hundevad Productions 
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