Deadline Extended for Students to Attend Plays Free

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Researchers in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas have extended the deadline for teachers to apply for free tickets to upcoming productions of A Christmas Carol and Hamlet by TheatreSquared.

Jay Greene, a professor of education reform, is paying for the tickets with funds from the endowed chair he holds. He is designing a study to compare what students learn from the experience of attending a live performance to what students learn who don’t see the play.

Students in grades 7-12 can see the Dickens play in December or the Shakespeare play in April. The application for school groups to obtain the free theater tickets is available on the TheatreSquared website. The deadline for A Christmas Carol is Oct. 8, and the deadline for Hamlet is Nov. 1.

Greene said the researchers want to see how seeing live theater may add to what students learn from reading great dramatic literature. He also plans to study how student interest in the arts, critical thinking skills, and values are affected by a culturally enriching school trip to the theater. Greene and his students have been conducting similar research on school field trips to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Walton Arts Center. 

Greene expects the number of applications to exceed the number of seats available, so that researchers will use a lottery to determine which school groups get the tickets. All students who apply for the tickets will get a free ticket to attend another performance next year, so that even those not chosen for the treatment group in the study will be rewarded for completing a survey used in the research.