WHAT THE RESEARCH TELLS US

…about the need for an intentional approach to mental health in performing arts organizations:

Professionals in the performing arts sector often report high levels of organisational demands, poor job security, over-commitment, difficulties coping with critical performance feedback, perceived lack of recognition for their work and poor relationships with colleagues (including competition amongst peers, bullying and temporary relationships due to transient affiliation to organisations), all of which may negatively impact on wellbeing.  

Samantha K. Brooks, Sonny S. Patel, “Challenges and opportunities experienced by performing artists during COVID-19 lockdown: Scoping review.” Social Sciences & Humanities Open, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2022.100297.

Poor working conditions, substance use, sexual violence, economic disparities, or body image pressure, are examples of risk factors well known to influence mental health outcomes, and that have been identified as existing stressors in the performing arts sector at a systemic level. Particularly, precarity of work has been found to be a predominant determinant in risk for mental health disorders…

Importantly, performers are more likely to seek and receive successful mental health support when the service is provided by someone in their community with first-hand knowledge of their lived-experiences.

Alejandra Cid-Vega, Adam D. Brown, Reimagining communities of care in the performing arts: A call for a community-based task-sharing approach to address the mental health needs of performing artists, SSM - Mental Health, Volume 3, 2023.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2023.100222.

People working in entertainment and performing arts are twice as likely to experience depression as the general population, according to a review of more than 100 academic studies…The impact of Covid restrictions on theatres and other venues in 2020 and 2021 had exacerbated contributory factors such as job insecurity and low pay, said the performing arts practitioners’ union, Equity, which commissioned the review.

Antisocial working hours, time away from home and lack of support from people in positions of authority also fueled anxiety and depression.

Sherwood, Harriet.  People in performing arts twice as likely to have depression, Equity finds. The Guardian, May 11, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/12/performing-arts-depression-equity-covid-job-insecurity

[London-based entrepreneur Raffaella Covino] describes the four years spent working as an actor as being “fortunate, job-wise” but she remembers having very few conversations about her mental wellbeing. “There was a distinct lack of bespoke help in a career that has some very unique pressures,” she says. “So I decided to create a platform that could be a hub for people going through similar things to me.”

Covino’s company was founded with the belief that proper education on mental health “can equal prevention”.

Ryan, Anya.  ‘There was a distinct lack of help’: can theatre clean up its act on mental health?  The Guardian, August 31, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/aug/13/there-was-a-distinct-lack-of-help-theatre-mental-health

To the degree that the profession [of acting] teaches an inside-out approach in which student actors are encouraged to compare themselves to their characters and thus increase role/self blurring, our study suggests that theatre educators may have reason to be concerned about the discrepancy between positive artistic consequences and potentially negative personal consequences. 

Burgoyne, Suzanne, et al. "The Impact of Acting on Student Actors: Boundary Blurring, Growth, and Emotional Distress." Theatre Topics, vol. 9 no. 2, 1999, p. 157-179. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.1999.0011.