The Case for Theatre Amongst Youth
a piece by SPARC Blogger Garrett M. Ryan
My original intention was to begin this blog post with a reflection on the moment my life within the theatre began. I vividly recall sitting in my living room with my mother as she told me about an opportunity for a children’s summer camp in my small city of North Bay, which would entail two weeks of both fun and games as well as the creation of a full fledged musical presented in front of an audience of friends and family, as well as other members of the community. Excited albeit slightly apprehensive, I agreed to participate. If I remember correctly, my ten year old self was cast as the character of Melvin and had one long monologue which occurred near the climax of the play. I practiced my monologue with my mom in the same living room in which she told me about the summer camp in the first place. However, reflecting on this experience further, I realized I had performed on stage in front of an audience prior to participating in this musical, retelling the story of “King Kong” with a cat puppet and paper cut outs of mice glued onto popsicle sticks with my lines printed sneakily on the side facing away from the audience. Going further back still, I came to another realization that my first time on stage was in fact with my starring role as the titular nutcracker in the play of the same name in junior kindergarten, a role which I secured through being the first five year old to volunteer. However, I was then left to question as to whether my life of performance truly began when I stepped on stage, or whether it began when I watched my first piece of theatre or created my first babbling stories starring my stuffed animals as early as I can remember. Truthfully, I can’t pinpoint the moment that theatre became a part of my life because it’s always been there for me, for which I am eternally grateful.
Image Description: A Young Garrett Ryan, playing the role of Melvin on stage. He wears a blue shirt and jean shorts held up by overalls, with shaggy red hair. He stands on a platform in front of a black curtain and fake brick wall.
Indeed, I am one of the lucky few who had supportive parents who fostered this love of theatre throughout my early years and pushed me to pursue my dreams as a young adult. I am well aware that many have not had this opportunity. It is also not my wish for this blog to be an encouragement for all youth to be as involved with theatre as I was. Some may certainly find similar benefits to the ones which I will discuss shortly through sports, academia, or anything else. However, I am of the firm belief that we should encourage all young folks to dip their toes in. To have an experience with performance, even if it’s short lived and they do not consciously understand the benefits for years following the encounter, or perhaps ever.
I want to say that theatre is for everyone, because I truly believe that to be the case. However, I am aware that we need to do so much better as a community to encourage folks from all walks of life to try their hand at it. The theatre community can be very closed off and toxic to outsiders. We all know this to be the case and I have seen many wonderful artists in recent times trying to combat this exclusivity. Therefore, I will say here that theatre can be for everyone, or rather theatre should be for everyone, especially when it comes to young folks who serve to gain so much from the experience. In North Bay, if the painfully shy, uncoordinated kid who couldn’t sing to save his life listened to people who attempted to “gate keep” (the process of deciding who does or does not have access to a particular community or identity) theatre for the select few extroverts with golden voices, I wouldn’t be writing this article today. In fact, in my time partaking in volunteer work within youth theatre organizations, I have been more moved by the quiet kids breaking through their shells when given their moment in the spotlight than I have been by certain professionally staged productions in downtown Toronto. It’s real, powerful, and speaks to the core of what theatre can and should be.
These ideological roots spawned my interest in pursuing a master’s degree (MA) in Theatre & Performance Studies at York University in Toronto, with the intention of studying the effectiveness of performance creation for community building and personal development within my home region of Northern Ontario. As of writing this article, I have not yet begun the field work which will constitute the bulk of my studies, but I am already deep in the long and arduous process of foundational research on which my thesis will be based. On the subject of “gate keeping”, I am critical of academia for participating in the same culture of exclusivity. Researchers often remain within their own academic bubbles, using language so exclusionary that it barrs even the subjects of the paper from properly understanding. Therefore, in the interest of inclusivity and making my case on the value of theatre outside of my anecdotal and subjective experiences, I want to give a brief overview of some of the work being undertaken in recent times which investigates these tangible benefits of theatre and performance amongst rural youth! These are by no means exhaustive summaries and I encourage those who are interested to read the full articles as they are able. As well, when I complete my thesis, I am more than happy to share my own findings with anyone who may be interested! Please reach out!
Starting from a more global perspective, there is a very interesting if broad (for our purposes) work by Jenny Hughes entitled “Playing a Part” within the larger Research in Drama Education which details the effects of performance on childhood development from the UK, and was commissioned by the National Association of Youth Theatres (NAYT), funded by Arts Council England (ACE) and carried out by the Centre for Applied Theatre Research (CATR). Through a series of theatrical workshops, Hughes noted that the theatre environment helped facilitate a safe space in which youth could unpack their feelings about global economic, social, and environmental issues. We see here that theatre is not only used as a tool for creative expression, but also as a method for instilling the next generation with the ability to communicate with one another and stand up for their beliefs. Hughes finishes her article by saying that “Youth theatre is a place where young people are protected and develop important personal and social skills and resources at the same time as confronting the uncertainty and risk involved in making transitions to adulthood.” (70)
Remaining in the global context but shifting our focus to the rural and remote communities, I want to highlight some of the incredible research that has come out of Australia in recent years on this subject. Specifically, the work of Howard Cassidy in “Spirit of Place” and “To Leave or not to Leave”. Both of these studies focus on the oft unspoken problem of youth leaving their rural communities for economic or social gain. In “Spirit of Place”, Cassidy breaks down the process of facilitating a devised piece of theatre, that is a collectively created piece with youth theatre makers and actors, which sought to delve into the underlying factors of rural youth leaving their home communities for the big city. While Cassidy never claims that such a production curbed the problem itself, we can see this project as a way for both the youth collaborators and the youth audience members within the schools that watched the final product to reflect on their own relationships with their home communities in a way that they may not have done otherwise. Once again, we see theatre here as a tool for development, rather than solely as a creative hobby.
Finally, in our Canadian context, there have been a number of articles in recent years that focus on theatre and performance for youth in rural communities, but my personal favourites have been those of Diane Conrad. Her works “Exploring Risky Youth Experiences” and “Rethinking ‘at-risk’ in Drama Education,” which both situate themselves in rural Alberta and utilize performance ethnography (the study of the performance of everyday life) for community development have inspired much of my own research. I want to look specifically at “Exploring Risky Youth Experiences”, which once again follows the creation of a devised piece of theatre amongst rural Alberta youth who seek to explore the ways in which their social issues have arisen from their rural environment. In both of these articles, following the spirit of inclusivity, she reframes the concept of “at-risk” allowing the youth to unpack their own societal issues in a safe theatrical space without any presuppositions of inherent delinquency. Conrad claims that this project of theatrical creation took the youth and their issues seriously and gave them both a voice and protective shield of performance to speak on their community’s problems. We understand how keeping issues bottled up inside can lead to and has indeed led to many problems for marginalized peoples in our country later in life. In this sense, Conrad’s work here demonstrates that using theatre as a tool for self expression here can have the potential to change the direction of and potentially even save one’s life.
Once again, I encourage anyone interested to look at the articles for yourself. They can certainly move into the realm of academic jargon, but they are very interesting for those who want to understand the process of this work to a greater extent. But the main takeaway I would love for you, the reader of this blog post, to have is to not underestimate the power of theatre on youth (and on anyone for that matter). You don’t have to be a “theatre kid” or become a working theatre professional to be affected by its awesome power either. As people who love theatre and participate in theatre, let’s work so that every youth can have a chance to see how performance changes their lives for the better! It’s a long road ahead, but I’m happy to have anyone interested join me on this path!
CITATION: Jenny Hughes & Karen Wilson (2004) Playing a part: the impact of youth
theatre on young people's personal and social development, Research in Drama Education, 9:1,
57-72, DOI: 10.1080/1356978042000185911
