Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Warwick Business School have joined forces to research the impact of theatre on children. The study will draw its research from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s project REP’s Children, which offers a free theatre experience to all babies born in City and Heartlands hospitals every year for the first 10 years of their lives.
This project begins in October of this year, where newborns and their families will have the opportunity to see the theatre’s new production of Open House for free. In order to uncover the impact theatre has on children, Birmingham has employed Warwick Business School Professor Jonathan Neelands to research the effects of the REP’s program.
‘The research programme will cover 10 years and we will look to see how many of these children have carried on going to the theatre and how going to the theatre has changed their lives,’ Neelands said in a press release. ‘Many of the families involved might never have gone to the theatre before. We will look at how the different families have taken up this offer and see if it has made any difference to “cultural engagement”, which is something the arts and theatres are striving to achieve. We want to find out what difference going to the theatre makes to the lives of these children.’
Neelands also announced that they have secured an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Collaborative Studentship which will allow them to study the first three years of the project.
‘Birmingham Repertory Theatre is committed to widening participation and a sustainable future by creating future theatre-goers. We need to see how that has worked and what we can learn from the project,’ he said.
The REP’s Children project was first launched in 2004 and now has 140 children and their families who regularly attend performances and events at the theatre as part of the project. The aim of the project has always been to engage families and their children with theatre and create a long-lasting relationship between the theatre and the local community.
Associate Director of the REP Steve Ball notes that the collaboration with Warwick Business School will provide the theatre a better opportunity to work towards this aim.
‘This collaboration provides us with an excellent opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of our communities and to evaluate the impact of this exciting intervention,’ he said. ‘We are delighted to be working with Warwick Business School who have an outstanding reputation for research in the Arts and Education.’
