08/29/2016
In his book "Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art," UCLA professor James Catterall details the results of a twelve-year study in which he followed secondary students who participated in music or theater arts in school into their adult lives to see if the arts made a difference, and what kind of difference it made. Catterall found a strong association between high school theater and inner development. “Sustained student involvement in theatre arts (acting in plays and musicals, participating in drama clubs, and taking acting lessons) associates with a variety of developments for youth,” he writes in the first chapter. “Gains in reading proficiency, gains in self-concept and motivation, and higher levels of empathy for others.”
By encouraging students to add more performance back into the text, Shakespeare's works are gaining greater purpose.