Under pressure program: using live theatre to investigate adolescents' attitudes and behavior related to drug and alcohol abuse education and prevention

Adolescence, Spring, 1993 by L. Arthur Safer, Carol Gibb Harding

Bandy and President(1983) provided an overview of the factors that may explain why some prevention advertising campaigns are unsuccessful. They argued for a firm understanding of the media's functions and limitations in communicating prevention messages. Their research emphasized that human communication is complicated, affected by wide-ranging variables, any of which can reduce effectiveness. They concluded that the media are most effective in reinforcing certain behaviors and attitudes. Thus, the most successful health behavior change campaign aimed at a school population should incorporate mass media within a school curriculum that promotes interpersonal communication.

Mass media programming, according to Flay(1986), when used as a supplement to a school-based intervention approach, should reinforce the information and skills being provided. In doing so, dissemination, message effectiveness, and the probability that students and their parents will discuss the content will be increased.

An example of one such school-based program is the use of theatre in education. Redington (1983) acknowledged that playwrights from Sophocles to Brecht have used their plays to convey facts, political attitudes, or moral instruction to their audiences. She cited a recent development in London in which schools utilized the theatre as a teaching medium: "The aim of theatre in education is that presentations in schools should educate, widen pupils' horizons, and lead them to ask questions about the world around them, as well as entertain." One reason for the potency of the theatre in conveying a message on the evils of drug abuse is that students are not just passive recipients of information. Their active participation can vary from becoming involved in a drama session to taking part in a discussion.

Louis Glickman of the Addiction Research Foundation stated that the search for effective alcohol education programming has resulted in an approach that can be labeled unique in the drug education literature. The content does not appear to be different from the "personal choice" message, but what has changed is the medium of the message: the programs are presented via live theatrical performance (Glickman et al., 1983).

Glickman et al. conducted a study with approximately 1,000 students on the impact of a high school alcohol education program utilizing a live theatrical performance. It was hypothesized that the theatrical program would have a positive impact (when compared to a control group) on the students' knowledge, attitudes, motivation, and behaviors with respect to alcohol. The results of the study were extremely encouraging, and perhaps the most exciting finding was that significant effects on behavior seemed to have occurred for those with the greatest need for change.

Several organizations have used theatre as a vehicle for drug and alcohol prevention. Plays for Living, a division of the Family Service Association of America, has developed and sponsored tours of professional productions addressing a variety of social and health issues, including alcohol problems in the workplace. Small Change Theatre offered a production for the Minnesota Lung Association aimed at deterring smoking in grade schools. Since 1978, the Catalyst Theatre Society in Edmonton has developed several socially oriented productions to acquaint students with lifestyle issues. Theatrical performances have been used to mobilize rural communities in Botswana to resolve social problems, and to help New York teenagers understand complex social and health problems (Davidson, 1977; Kidd & Byram, 1977; Boria et al., 1981; Bossio et al., 1978-79).