It’s no secret that the majority of extracurricular funds go towards high school sports programs, leaving students who are interested in the arts without much of a budget to work with. Many theater programs across the country have faced severe underfunding, or total removal of the program altogether. There is beauty in watching young students come together to create a show and share their art with their community, and for many students, theater is all they have. The only extracurricular activity I participated in was theater, and it made my high school days a bit more tolerable. But while the arts provide a space of community, acceptance, and learning for many like myself, theater departments are seemingly overlooked by schools when it comes time to set the annual budget.
While productions can be put on without any budget whatsoever, students deserve to have costumes, sets, and props to bring their show to life. High school students are unlikely to attend a show if there is not some form of visual stimuli that holds their attention, some students leave a production if they find it “boring.” Aside from aesthetics, garnering the rights to perform more recent, popular productions costs a bit of money. Directors must purchase a license to put on more recent plays and musicals.
Due to the high licensing cost, many low-budget theater programs opt to put on traditional shows, such as those written by Shakespeare, Euripides, and Sophocles. Kids deserve the opportunity to perform in shows that are not so antiquated, shows they are actually interested in, such as Mean Girls, West Side Story, Annie, or Shrek: The Musical.
The arts are an essential part of education. In fact, according to a study for the University of California Los Angeles in which 25,000 K-12 students were recorded, researchers found students with high arts involvement performed better on standardized achievement tests than students with low arts involvement. Aside from academic performance, the arts provide an outlet for children of all ages who struggle with mental health, physical health, economic instability, tension at home, or abuse.
High school theater programs can no longer be sidelined or abolished; students greatly benefit socially, emotionally, and academically from performing on stage or working behind the scenes.
