Nathan Mensah – MA, MT-BC – “Being Alive”-Exploring Benefits of Musical Theatre with Music Therapy for Adolescents in Healthcare Settings

Adolescents have a wide variety of unique musical interests and preferences, including musical theatre. Teens who participate in musical theatre typically identify with these songs for many reasons, including finding themselves in the identity of the characters, and for the strong emotional resonance in songs. Musicals depict a wide variety of topics, including the emotional turbulence of the teenage experience. Many songs and repertoire involve strong feelings that other genres may not fully delve into. Musical theatre is, by its essence, comprised of songs so strong in emotional content that the characters must burst into song to even begin to express what they are experiencing. Hospitalization often yields very strong emotions, and a loss of autonomy and control, and a displacement of their sense of self. Musical theatre is beneficial in alleviating negative symptoms as it provides opportunities for healthy self-expression, sounding of oneself, and an ownership of self-esteem and identity.

It is a crucial privilege to help a patient reflect on their own identity as a musical being in and out of the therapeutic process. When a patient gets to share their story in song, they get to share their own way of sharing it and their preferred method to share it. This also provides them with an outlet to process their own feelings in the creative process. Musical theatre is unique in that the genre has many styles in itself, including rock musicals, hip-hop, classical, and jazz to name a few. Musical theatre repertoire is rich with years of story-based songs that many find strong connections too. Incorporation of musical theatre into music therapy practice comes with its own challenges, some of which have been identified in literature, but mostly through discussion of psychodrama and drama therapy using music. There are experiences that only music therapists are able to tap into, not with psychotherapy or psychodrama, but with the therapeutic process using music as a modality with the resource of musical theatre.

In this presentation, the four methods of music therapy will be used as starting points to learn how musical theatre can fit into one’s own music therapy practice. These concepts will be further investigated via case studies, instruction on facilitating experiences, and audio recordings. Participants will leave with an understanding of musical theatre in music therapy practice, ideas of repertoire to incorporate, strategies on how to include music technology, and tips on songwriting in this style.

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