To conclude this community guide, put your reading hat on! If it was already on, make sure it’s tight and secure. Although this section will be wordy, it’s necessary information to close out this guide.

In a clinical study conducted by University of Illinois  professors Reed W. Larson and Jane R. Brown, they assert that a student’s participation in high school theater programs is able to foster the development of emotional management. Here, the researchers used qualitative methods to examine the students’ experiences during rehearsals to report their relationships and interactions with fellow students and directors.

Their research found that students learned how to manage their stress through theater programs, since theater is often a stressful and high stakes experience. They were able to build strengths in their emotional regulation, while managing frustration and stage anxiety in this setting. Students also reported that acting helped them understand and portray different emotions, contributing towards building empathetic views towards others and perspective-taking. Larson and Brown noted that the overall confidence and self-awareness reports from students was a direct result of working through emotional challenges in an inclusive environment full of people that supported them.

Coming from a developmental-psychological perspective, this research was aimed to contribute to this field through its contributions towards revealing the necessity for spaces that grow emotional competence in adolescents. This piece informs its audience that adolescents participating in theater programs can build emotional regulatory skills and maturity within the safe walls of a theater through role-playing, social collaboration and discovering self-expression.

As noted in this paper, the ultimate goal of their research was to develop a deeper understanding of how structured student programs - in this case, specifically high school theater programs - can foster emotional development in teens. The researchers viewed that non-academic, extracurricular environments are highly contributing factors towards supporting healthy emotional development in students. With direct connection to this community guide, this research provides the evidence for how musical theater fosters the development of emotional literacy. It takes a closer look at how theatrics are an art form which teach lessons and help build skills that students can take with them throughout their lives, signifying the importance of this community in a student’s process of growing up.