Can Theatre Help Young People Talk About Mental Health? Miami University Wants to Find Out

(Photo: Miami University)

by Chris Peterson

This is the kind of theatre news I wish we saw more often.

Miami University theatre professor Matt Omasta has received a $300,000 grant to study whether theatre can have a measurable impact on youth mental health. He will serve as a third-party evaluator for Imagination Stage’s touring educational theatre program, which was commissioned by Kaiser Permanente and is designed to help students engage with topics like emotional regulation, empathy, stress, depression, grief, and resilience.

“The idea is early intervention. By providing these interventions for mental health through the arts, we can help promote wellbeing and reduce the risk of complications later,” Omasta said. “We’re integrating an arts experience and a wellness program in a way that serves the goals of both: giving high quality theater experience to young people and achieving health and wellness goals.”

The program includes “Empathy Quest,” an interactive performance for second, third, and fourth graders that uses cognitive behavioral therapy principles, and “Ghosted,” a play for students in grades seven through ten about young people navigating stress, depression, grief, and the aftermath of a school tragedy.

“We’ve been trusted by one of the largest professional theatres for young people in the country to do this program assessment for them. I think that speaks to recognition of the university’s expertise in theater,” Omasta said. “It’s also giving our students the opportunity to learn about the ways that data and social science methods can be infused into the arts, how we can use standardized and reliable methods of inquiry to look at things that are often considered to be more amorphous and difficult to explore. Not a lot of students have the opportunity to work on research like that, especially as undergraduates.”

This is fantastic news. More of this, please.

Theatre for young audiences is sometimes treated like a smaller corner of the field, when in reality it may be one of the most consequential. The right show at the right age can stay with a child for years. It can introduce emotional vocabulary. It can model friendship, grief, fear, asking for help, and naming what feels too big to say out loud.

And no, theatre is not a replacement for mental health care. No one is claiming that. But it can be part of a larger ecosystem of support, especially when programs are created and evaluated thoughtfully.

At a time when schools, families, and communities are searching for more ways to support young people, this feels like the kind of work the theatre field should be paying close attention to. We certainly will be.