Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112672

Forrest G. Hartl¹, Molly M. Jackson¹, and Miguel Chion, MD, MPH². (1) Educational Theatre Programs, Kaiser Permanente, 815 Colorado Blvd. #103, Los Angeles, CA 90041, 323-259-4531, Forrest.G.Hartl@KP.org, (2) Education, AIDS Project Los Angeles, 611 S. Kingsley Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90005

Issues: Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre Programs (ETP) uses live theatre as a delivery platform to provide health information to children in grades K-12. The arts in general and theatre specifically can be an innovative strategy for delivering information or fomenting social change. It can also be misused and consequently suffer a poor reputation among administrative, theatre, and health education circles. Additionally, audiences can hold low expectations for arts programs and mute their ability to learn from them. Description: ETP has provided health interventions to diverse populations and communities for twenty years. ETP is committed to providing benchmarks and quality control within the larger arts and education community by demonstrating and articulating a high standard for performance, workshops, and providing evidence-based data. Qualitative and quantitative data (pre and post-show surveys, focus groups) also examine the relationship between audience enjoyment, buy-in of onstage situations and retention of educational messages. Specific examples of poor and best-practice approaches will be demonstrated. Lessons Learned: - Audiences who rate shows positively report higher retention of educational content. - Good efforts should not be confused with good performance or with educational impact. - Quality must be high because of direct competition: television, film, and video games. Furthermore, high-quality educational theatre utilizes unique theatrical elements that are only achieved live with their audience. Recommendations: Findings and lessons learned will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the need for a higher standard in educational theatre.
• Avoid frequently made mistakes of amateur educational theatre artists.
• Apply best practices when creating educational theatre.

Keywords: Communication, Youth

Related Web page: www.kp.org/etp

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation