Introduction

It is no secret that the mental health crisis among youth and teens has been skyrocketing over the past decade. Schools, often the first line of defense for this demographic, struggle to provide adequate support. Intro to Acting displays how stage acting can be used as a tool to address mental health challenges within educational settings and advocate for its integration into school curricula. By examining, critiquing, and performing scenes from plays and musicals that explore mental health topics, students have gained stage acting skills and insights into the complexities of human emotion.

History

Telling stories on a stage dates back to ancient Greece, gaining even greater traction in England during the Elizabethan era. On-stage storytelling was primarily created for entertainment purposes, but often carried morals and messages for the audience to carry with them. My students explored the complexities of each work and character we examined to develop strong, accurate, and thorough performances. Each work we examined dealt with a mental health issue, further embedding my mission into my workshop. Various scholarly works affirm the therapeutic and educational potential of theater, such as Francine R. Mendelowitz’s article, “Using Applied Theater to Promote Social-Emotional Health in Adolescents.” Mendelowitz describes how theater can improve emotional resilience and interpersonal skills in adolescents. 

Methods

In developing the curriculum for Intro to Acting that highlights the intersection of theater, mental health, and education, I pulled from theatrical works and scholarly research. Alice M. Robinson's “Theatre Education” explained the structure of a successful drama curriculum, which I implemented into my syllabus by beginning with acting basics and immersing the students into the scripts. We played improv games and learned some basic techniques at the semester’s start, then began comparing their interpretations to recorded performances. The musicals Next to Normal and Dear Evan Hansen, and Lucy Prebble’s play The Effect, were all scripts we examined over the semester. These narratives provided students with relatable frameworks for understanding mental health, opening up a discussion and emotional engagement.

Audience & Impact

My audience for this project is primarily educators and educational officials. My goal is for them to understand how beneficial theater can be in opening up the mental health conversation and providing an accessible coping mechanism for adolescents struggling with their mental health. Intro to Acting challenged the students to be creative physically and verbally, finding nuanced ways to portray their characters that were unique to them. They collaborated with their classmates in developing their scenes together by creating their blocking, costumes, and aligning it all with their vision for how the scene should be performed. I relearned how passionate I am about theater through this workshop, and discovered a love of directing in particular, as I have only had past experiences as a performer. By branching out to another role in the theater experience, and uniting my loves of education and theater, I have grown both artistically and as a scholar.

References

Levenson, Steven, et al. “Dear Evan Hansen Libretto.” Online.Fliphtml5.Com, Theatre Communications Group NY, Apr. 2017, online.fliphtml5.com/mrak/vvlb/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

Mendelowitz, Francine R. "Using Applied Theater to Promote Social-Emotional Health in Adolescents." Group, vol. 47 no. 12, 2023, p. 53-66. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/grp.2023.0006.

Parr, Hester. “Mental Health, the Arts and Belongings.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 31, no. 2, 2006, pp. 150–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804378. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all my mentors, directors, and teachers over the years who have helped to form me as an actor, and who have granted me all the knowledge and experience I have been able to share with my students. I would also like to thank my TA Nivi Munjal, for all her help during class each week, and of course, all of my participants. Jazzy, Simon, Yeye, Rowan, Emma, Emily, and Sarah, you all have put forth so much effort and love into these characters and this workshop, and I can not thank you enough. You made every class so lively and fun, and it has been an honor to be your director!