ScienceDaily: Field trips to live theater enhance literary knowledge, tolerance, and empathy among students, according to a study. The research team found that reading and watching movies of Hamlet and A Christmas Carol could not account for the increase in knowledge experienced by students who attended live performances of the plays. Students who attended live performances of the play also scored higher on the study's tolerance measure than the control group by a moderately large margin and were better able to recognize and appreciate what other people think and feel.
26 comments:
I think this is such a great study and I hope that as more studies like this are done, school groups are able to arrange trips to allow their students to view live theater. I know that on the occasions when I studied plays in high school it was important for me to be able to see a live production of the play in order to fully understand both the language and the story. I was also glad to see that the study found that students were better able to understand the emotions in the play and in other people when they saw the show live, because I feel like that's not always something considered when simply studying the language of a play. In plays with more complicated language, like Shakespeare, it's easy to get lost in the words and not really understand the emotions behind them, and seeing the actors in a live production express those emotions through the language really helps to tie it all together, especially for younger students who are just being introduced to the nuances of theater.
Clearly a very interesting study, and I hope more follow it. I would like to address some things, however, that are potentially problematic to the results. The first is that I would purport that the vast majority of the students who only 'read' the play, didn't actually read the play. This suggestion is based on going through high school with students, where 90% of the class didn't read the play, and most didn't even read an online summary. This is, of course, as issue with the late millennial generation, but it does not necessarily mean that the play would produce a greater understanding of plot than a legitimate read, or a movie. That being said, greater retention of the intricacies of a story, and the empathetic aspects discussed in this article, is certainly of the greatest impact from a theatrical experience. Last year I researched a project about the specific nature of technology in theatre, and how it is altering, and perhaps corrupting, the core of theatre. One of the major findings in that research is that the brain finds itself an active participant in the event if it is based in direct, human to human, contact. Therefore, a screen present in front of an audience immediately tells the audience their role: passive. However, because there is a human present in front of them, their role is significantly more dangerous, because it can change by the second. Therefore, their mind is more actively engaged. In the same way, this allows for all facets of the mind to be strengthened by a theatrical event, from analysis, to empathy. We really ought to have more studies like the one discussed here, as to discover the nature of our art form is the key to having it strengthened as we continue our journey with it.
This article doesn’t say anything new. We’ve known for years that theater is meant to be seen and not read. We also know that understanding shows is easier when seen than read. I think the key to this article, and the experiment, is the phrase “high-quality theater”. Seeing a bad production may not help understanding anything about a play. In fact, it may hinder the understanding. There are many organizations that are trying to make theater accessible to more and younger audiences. Most organizations offer some kind of student ticket price or program, or in the cases of Shakespeare many companies offer free outdoor performances. Personally, I hate reading scripts. I would much rather see a show to understand it than read it. Though in the end, one might say that the two compliment and supplement each other.
I think that it is true that students gain more knowledge and emotional connection to a show if they see it performed live. It is hard to get the full story and all the minor details of a play if you just read the script. People often skim or they do not fully pay attention to the words they are reading on the page. I personally have to read things a few times to fully understand what is happening, especially with a complicated play. When you see the story in front of you with real people playing each character and speaking in the tone of voice that conveys their emotions, it is a lot easier to understand what is happening. People do not often read who is saying what line when they read a play, so it can be confusing sometimes figuring out who is talking if you are not paying close attention. In a live play you see exactly who is talking and their intentions.
This article didn’t really change any of my opinions about the value of exposing young audiences to theatre. It certainly confirmed my beliefs that it has a positive impact on young people’s lives and is beneficial to learning. That being said however I still believe that what we get out of theatre isn’t really something we can quantify for a study. I think the magical thing about theatre is that there is a real, often very talented, person standing in front of you but for two hours or so they aren’t bound down to our reality. They are able to escape or illuminate that are placed on us and inspire young people to really stretch themselves to improve. If studies about improved reception of the play are what it takes to convince us we need to give our children that space to dream then I guess we’ll still get the benefits but I don’t think we need to wait for science to tell us what our hearts have been telling us since the days of the Greeks and even earlier.
Watching a play as a movie in school was always one of the best days because that meant you could sleep/ do your homework while listening to the play in the background. Rarely would everyone be paying attention to the actors, which, of course, means they weren’t as engaged emotionally to the story. But when you’re in a theatre, you’re literally surrounded by a bunch of people who are all there only to watch this one even. The energy of all these people talking about the same thing naturally heightens concentration in a way that could never be achieved by staying in school. The mere fact that a theatrical production takes place somewhere other than school makes it infinitely more special and memorable. So often school is the place of anxiety and dread and it is difficult to feel anything else (or remember thinking anything else) while in the building, so breaking away from that negativity can make anyone feel again.
This study is so important in todays society, because so many schools are taking budget away from their fine arts programs. It seems like most often it is the first to go. I think this article is just another example of how to shift with the times in order to stay alive, but instead of being targeted at theatre productions companies its targeted at education. I may be wrong, but I feel like in the past a play was a pretty solid form of entertainment, or at least there was no way to know what happened without skimming it. So even though plays were meant to be seen not read, more students were reading them then they are now. It’s so easy to look up the synopsis online, and movies are so prevalent that there is such a disconnect in that setting between actor and viewer. By putting kids in a room where they are forced to believe in this alternate reality that is a mere few feet away, you are ensuring a much higher level of engagement then you would get from simply handing out the script. Live theatre is allowing English class to remain relevant in todays society.
Haha!
This is great. I really when people tell me that reading a play is as good as watching it live. They’ll always admit that you don’t get the “fun stuff”, but that you get the same information.
I’m really glad that I finally have a study to back up the notion that you get more out of a play by seeing it than reading it.
I love that they picked the fact that Ophelia drowns in Hamlet. More students can recall that after seeing it than reading it.
The article mentions Hamlet and A Christmas Carol. I wonder what other plays were included in the study.
I think a good next test to determine what it is about plays that are so much more effective on stage would be to have blind readings of the play, and then silent supertitled versions of the play.
It’s the text, but I think it’s really the visual performance of the material that makes all the difference.
As someone who came from a performing arts high school I was always told how much seeing live shows would better me. As a theater student now I would totally have to agree. What it did for me was give me the opportunity to look at a more relate able form of artistic work and form full thoughts and critiques about the production. Learning to do this at a young age has allowed me to look at different forms of artwork now and talk about it with people in an educated manor. I enjoy being able to do that with other people, especially people who are in different disciplines, it makes conversations and artistic analyses more interesting. I think it is pretty cool that there was viable research done to prove that students are better off seeing live shows. It is a shame that the more mainstream shows are so much money so students don’t think that seeing shows is an option which is a shame.
Educators today often underestimate the power of the learning which students must do outside of the classroom. Quite often I think teachers and administrators find it insulting to their abilities that they could need such supplements in order to make their lessons resonate. However, the teachers who dare to take their students out into the world, to show them live performances and the impact of the stories they teach, often make the greatest impact on their students' learning. I think live theatre is the perfect example of how this can be accomplished. No other medium of storytelling requires such presence and attentiveness from its witnesses so as to require that they engage on the highest possible level. The addition of a live performance to the curriculum a teacher uses to teach a certain play or literary work is rewarding for both the educator and the student because it drives home the living, breathing nature of the text. It is easy for a student to disengage from a work which they see as old, dusty, and irrelevant. It is not so easy to do so when watching a story unfold onstage, acted by the performers of today, communicating themes which resonate with impressionable minds. If educators are to continue to engage students in a digital age, I think it will become absolutely necessary for them to include live performances of the texts they teach. At the very least, students would be more excited to come to class each day.
This study reports what many have claimed of live performance for a very long time. Live storytelling is the most powerful way to convey emotions, experiences and ideas. A live performance is more likely to evoke emotional response, change opinions, alter perceptions, and inspire questions and curiosity. This is why I am so intrigued by the production of theatre, because it is such a powerful art form. Being able to create unparalleled connections between audience members and the story, whether it is through immersion or strongly evoking empathy, is what sets theatre apart. Much of theatre is studying the human experience: how we interact, how we deal with conflict, how we triumph over challenge (or not). I’m glad this study looked at how theatre influences comprehension and learning in an academic setting, since there is an often unheard, but strong, argument for the inclusion of live performance in education. Bringing students to live performances—whether it is theatrical, a cultural/musical performance, or other live art form—can be an important part of primary and secondary education and we must continue to promote doing so. If it can help create a society of more thoughtful, present, empathetic, and considerate learners, it is invaluable.
When I was in elementary school we took yearly trips to the New Victory Theater in New York City. The shows ranged from acrobatic shows, to shakespeare, and more contemporary children's theater, but it didn't matter because it was my favorite thing to do, I loved it. That might have something to do with the fact that I've chosen to pursue it for the rest of my life, but the other non-theatrical career pursuing kids also really enjoyed the show. I think that it's because theater helps people understand what they are watching more clearly. For grown ups that fact may not seem so vital, but for children who often see things, especially on TV, or on the computer that they aren't old enough to understand, they crave the ability to really get something. That obviously transfers into academia, which the article describes very well. I've always really appreciated schools that put an emphasis on taking their students to the theater, and theaters that put an emphasis on bringing students to see their shows. Hamilton just received a 1.5 Million dollar grant, and with it they are taking 20,000 New York City students to the show for only 10 dollars. I can't think of a better way to spend the money, theater is an invaluable way to invest in students, and I think there are plenty of people who are examples of that.
Yes! Go to live theatre! I have always wished I could have seen more live theatre when I was younger, so I continuously encourage students to. This makes me think about London and their theatre culture. There students go to live theatre all the time. Every show I attended while I was there had students in attendance, and for the family friendly shows there were whole classes there for field trips. I was so jealous that these kids were getting the chance to see these wonderful shows while young so they could learn and appreciate the art of live theatre. I was sitting in those theatres wishing that here in the states there was more of a push for students seeing live art, which is why I am glad that these studies have been done and have been positive so that adults can see that students learn so much more seeing these wonderful shows live and in person.
I definitely agree wth this article. It's so important for students to see live theatre, regardless of whether or not they actually care about theatre. Any live performance demands such a high level of skill, coordination, and communication. In addition to the lesson in the importance of teamwork, there is the more obvious benefit of seeing live theatre, which is the cultural and philosophical aspect. Seeing a show live has a much bigger impact than just reading a show. Most students don't actually pay attention to what they read, especially if it's for school. However, students are forced to pay attention to and absorb a live show.
This is so true! For high school I went to an Art Magnet school and we constantly were able to see live theater that would come to the Waterbury Palace Theater, which we were right next to. Shows like Newsies and Sister Act came through as well as Hamlet and classic plays. Our school was known for better test scores and smarter students in general compared to the other high schools in the district by far, and I would contribute a lot of it to the arts. Some of the impact probably came from many influences but as the article proves a lot must come from the theater. I for sure would always make a point to try to see a live version of a play we were reading for English, such as Romeo and Juliet, because it allows you to comprehend the material so much more, and develop a better understanding of the time.
Surprise surprise the arts help students learn. I’m not going to lie I’m not surprised by these study results. Think about what theatre is. People are actively experiencing the emotions of the script right in front of you. The audience relates to the actors in a more intimate way than they ever do while watching a movie. The acting out also helps provide emotional context for the events that occur. It can be hard for novice play readers to ascertain the emotions that the characters are trying to express. I’ll be honest I absolutely hate reading plays. Plays are meant to be seen and experienced not read. So much happens on stage that can not be conveyed through the written word. All the descriptive language found in a novel or short story is found in other areas of the play, not the script. I honestly believe that some theatrical devices cannot be experienced just by reading plays. There is no way to experience the awkwardness of a Pinter Pause when you are reading alone.
Usually I would focus on how unclear the conclusion are based on how the study was done, but not so in this case. They did a proper matched pair study eliminating for bias among groups. They did a pretty good job but left out one important thing. Everyone in the study, control group and not, wanted to go. This is a demonstration that giving kids an opportunity to attend live theater if they want to helps to make them more tolerant. This does not demonstrate that forcing other kids to go would have the same result.
And to all the people saying something along the lines of "well duh" you might be biased. This is not something that is evident and using real science to demonstrate things gets people more interested. This is the kind of thing that leads to funding for the arts, don't hate.
When I first read this article, I thought about how many live theatre performances my middle and high school has taken us to - zero. We've read and analyzed a lot of plays, but we've never actually gone on a field trip to see a live theater performance before. While theatre is often considered as a form of entertainment, they do send unique and significant messages. I personally think that while the scripts do teach the "moral lessons" of plays, it is the live performance that portrays the powerful and raw emotions that allows the students to actually take it all in and fully learn. Furthermore, watching the actual show instead of only reading the script is the way that the play is meant to be perceived! The scenic, costume, lighting and sound design all have meanings to them and can reveal things that words can't. This also goes to show that fine arts is important and should not be viewed any less than other more "academic" programs such as math or physics, which is something that schools need to recognize.
Reading this article, I can see, in myself and others, how live theater for teens is life changing. I know personally that, until I started doing theater seriously, school seemed like something that made little sense to do, indeed, something I had little motivation to do.
Reading this article, I was able to consciously connect how my own experiences with live theater have formed me as a person. While I can't assess if I've become a more tolerant person throughout my time working in and watching live theater, I do know that my boundaries as a reader and an audience member have been challenged, and that those challenges have made me consider my own opinions in ways that I would have never have otherwise.
While the language in this research paper/article was dense, I do believe I gained much insight from reading this piece.In particular, I find myself now prompted to reevaluate my previous stance on juvenile audiences at plays geared to more "mature" audiences, whereas before I would have expressed my dismay, assuming that the youth would not be able to gain anything from the experience. Consider my opinion changed by a look at the cool hard facts!
This is a very interesting article. In my senior year of high school, we all wrote senior thesis papers on a topic of our choice. Since my main interests were theatre and psychology, I decided to research how live theatre impacts the mind in ways that other mediums of entertainment cannot, and essentially argued that the emergence of easily accessible entertainment (such as Netflix) would eventually destroy our ability to emphasize with other people. The concept that really drove my paper was something called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are these parts of our brains that, when recognizing an emotion in someone else's face or contemplating an action someone else is doing, fire in the same way that they would if we ourselves were feeling or doing it. So if I were to see someone crying on stage, the same neurons that would activate in my brain if I were crying myself would fire and cause me to understand the pain I am seeing. Seeing live theatre and engaging with a cast of actors is one of the best ways there is to practice and understand empathy. The one disappointing part of this article was that they tell us they did do research on the empathetic abilities of the students, but do not share the results. When I was writing my paper, there was very little research done on the topic, so something like this might have been very helpful had it contained completed information.
It makes sense that seeing live theater increasing a viewers empathy and ability to relate to characters. Seeing a movie is great, and a really good actor can draw a viewer in, but actually seeing a person in full scale and being in the same room as them makes it much easier to identify them as another person and want to engage with them.
One thing I thought was a little weird in this article was in the first paragraph- the study has proven that viewing live theater leads to better understanding of the plot. Well, of course it does. You just saw it. I don't know if that means it's a better understanding of the plot vs. people who saw the movie version or just read it, but that stick out to me.
This article qualifies what I have believed for so long. Totally! Reading a play or watching a movie of a play may give you some textual insight into the world created by the playwright, but its seeing it performed live and right in front if your face that you appreciate it so much more. I also feel that teens should be exposed to live theatre as it is a beautiful art form. Having a story told in this manner brings in more focus than reading would... though reading is great, it can't compare to live action...in my opinion.
Coming from a art magnet high school, we were compelled to know about most of the plays being produced in our city and many students made plans in groups to go watch these productions and expand their dramatic culture.
I enjoyed this article very much and agree with it wholeheartedly.
I really value this article, the point it makes should be something everyone should know/read. It is a fact that live theatre has affected me in a way that film never could. My mom was and actress and is a directing teacher now, growing up i was immersed in theatre because she was. The first show i went to see that I remember was the jungle book at casa manana back in 1999 or 2000? the show show I think is what made me fall in love with scenery and immersive environment, at the time the jungle. that combined with Tarzan made me have a strong connection to the genre but actually touching the vines and seeing them in person was more powerful than tarzan doing it on screen. After that i was hooked and who knows what I'll be able to accomplish years from now, just because i was affected by these stories when i was 4. With more digital entertainment I hope that kids are still reaching out and appreciating live entertainment. As I've said before in comments being humans we respond to live stimulus because thats how we are programed, I don't think this will ever change and i hope it doesn't.
Not that I’m biased or anything, but I think that it is great that there are so many benefits for those who get to see live theatre in school. I have often thought to myself when reading a play that I would like it better if I saw it performed. Having schools take field trips to the theatre to actually see a play performed instead of just reading it exposes more young people to the world of theatre. According to the article, it also teaches the content better, which can only be a good thing. I really like the part of the article where it goes more into depth how theatre makes people be more tolerant and compassionate. I have definitely seen this in all my time in the theatre. Seeing people in front of you act out a story is like no other kind of performance or story.
This was a very well thought-out article. I’d like to focus on the difference between watching a movie of a play and actually seeing it. In high school, my English classes did not take the opportunity to go see any live theatre. We performed literary analyses on many well-known pieces of theatre. After reading the plays, we often watched one or more film adaptations. Of course, this helps, but seeing a play in its intended performance manner makes all the difference. The emotional connection is stronger, the words are felt more deeply, and the audience member experiences greater feelings. The effect of having a live actor in front of you imitating reality and illuminating important truths is very powerful. Ultimately, I believe that theatre is a very effective teaching tool that ought to be used more, especially in high schools.
Live performances engage people more dynamically because it's much harder to ignore other human beings in the same space as you, expressing their emotions and living their life out than it is to space out in front of a screen. There is something lost in translation when watching a movie. While some can definitely capture your attention and make you feel intensely, having an actual person telling their story in front of you sticks in your brain. It's the difference between a televised funeral and being there in the flesh, or being at the presidential debates and seeing it on TV. While the content is exactly the same, there is a shared human experience in face-to-face personal exchanges that no screen can replicate. The increase in knowledge between the kids who watched the movie and the play is because the kids who watched the live performance were more engaged and absorbed more information. This study is a great testament to the importance and power of live theater, and I hope more research will be done on why exactly live shows are so engaging, especially to young people.
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