What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of theater? Perhaps a brightly
lit stage with dancing, singing and exaggerated facial expressions. Or a somber scene: just a couple of actors in a black box theater and no prop in sight. No matter the tone, most people consider it to be some kind of entertainment. At least those in the audience.
For people struggling with mental health, especially those in addiction recovery, theater can mean something entirely different. As an Associate Professor and scholar of applied theater at Northeastern, Dani Snyder-Young has studied the impact of theater on people with substance abuse disorder to understand how it can support healing and personal transformation. Theater, like many expressive art forms, is an opportunity to process emotion outside of a typical client-patient relationship. And because of that, it brings something unique to the healing process.
“A lot of drama work is process-oriented,” says Snyder-Young. “And when you’re in a group of people who you build trust with, [you] build recovery-oriented social networks.”
She also says that acting gives you the space to take on a new identity, which can be liberating for those who have experienced stigma and have struggled to heal.
By engaging multiple theater companies designed for people in substance use disorder recovery, Snyder-Young has been able to observe and catalog their benefits. She’s on a mission to bring applied theater out of humanities and into the world of public health, and to do so, she feels that proper research must be employed.
It’s about “work that [is] methodologically very robust in terms of evidence and…also legible in my field,” says Snyder-Young.
The therapeutic nature of theater
Snyder-Young has spent her adult career studying theater and how it can be a vehicle for “education, conflict negotiation and rehabilitation.” Some of her research includes analyzing how different audiences react to plays with homeless performers, explanatory articles on best practices for evaluating the effectiveness of applied theater, and research on how performers value their educational plays. She has also directed numerous plays and has worked with theater companies around the world.
It wasn’t until she came to Northeastern in 2017 that she began exploring how theater can help people in addiction recovery. She found that angle incidentally through a chance meeting with a theater group called 2nd Act (at the time Improbable Players), which uses theater as therapy to help those recovering from substance abuse.
She was inspired to study this particular application of theater, so she approached Northeastern’s Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research, where she found a community of interdisciplinary scholars which could help her evaluate the recovery work in a way that would legitimize their project in the public health field.
Snyder-Young’s 2023 study, “‘Let Others Love You Back to Health’: The Role of Performance-based Support Groups for People in Recovery,” explores two different performance groups based in Boston. One group — under the pseudonym “Players in Recovery” for the purposes of the study — is an ensemble of actors performing recovery-related plays. The other — under the pseudonym “Storytellers in Recovery” — involves original solo performances based on the experiences of people in recovery.
In interviews with 26 participants across the two programs, participants explained how their lives were changed because of their experiences in theater. Through their responses, Snyder-Young identified four main reasons for the success of this approach.
1. Peer Support: Building Relationships
Collaborating with people who share similar experiences and recovery goals helped the actors open up about their past and hopes for the future. One study participant said: “It can be limitless in terms of what you open yourself up to. That vulnerability really is how people get better. If you let that stuff in and let yourself feel that it can be remarkably therapeutic without you even realizing.”
2. Recovery-Identity
Players in Recovery perform a repertoire of plays based on previous group members’ personal experiences with problematic drug or alcohol use; the roles they play resonate with their experiences. Participants of Storytellers in Recovery perform solo stories about their lived experiences.
The two recovery groups and this kind of role playing gave way to developing a new identity and a sense of “the power to do something if you want to,” says Snyder-Young.
“It really helped to rebuild my confidence… I’d lost everything, everybody,” said one study participant. “Working with the Players in Recovery…I knew I could transition back into society.”
3. Service to Others
Players in Recovery is an educational theater organization that performs in school assemblies. Study participants said this adds to the healing experience. They felt pride educating others about what addiction really looks and challenging the stereotypes many people associate with addiction disorders.
“It nurtured me, it fed my soul, I felt like I was making a difference” said one study participant.
4. Performance and Wellbeing
Finally, making plays about their past substance use made patients examine the impacts those experiences had on them. This process allowed participants to heal.
“It let me touch the things and share the things out loud…that I didn’t even want to look at.. . And it helps because once you say it, you can let go of it a little bit” said one study participant.
What’s next for Synder-Young?
To Snyder-Young, the benefits of theater for recovery are clear. “Theater is a low risk intervention. And it’s cheap.”
She and her colleagues have known this intuitively for a long time. “To my field, this was obvious. There was nothing interesting about what I had found.”
There are, however, more questions that she hopes to address. Who are the kinds of people that are naturally drawn to recovery programs? Is their own drive what’s making them succeed?
“There’s some chicken egg stuff going on, right? Are people with a stronger sense of self, who are more outgoing, more likely to participate in theater? Are those [personality traits] the things that are really driving the recovery or is it the intervention?”
Her research makes it possible to communicate findings with the rest of the world and help companies like Players in Recovery and Storytellers in Recovery receive funding for their work. Snyder-Young hopes to make this unique form of substance abuse recovery more visible, so a larger demographic of people can access its benefits.
Not only does it change the lives of performers, but it challenges the audience to go outside their comfort zones. It doesn’t have to be taboo to talk about substance abuse, says Snyder-Young. “[Theater has] the capacity to shift the boundaries of what is socially acceptable.”
Story from the Science Media Lab.
Last Updated on November 21, 2023