In collaboration with the Matilda Centre, we are developing an innovative, inclusive program of pretend play that builds foundational social and emotional skills to improve wellbeing in our children. We will harness the power of play to equip children, parents and educators with lifelong skills.

123Play is a multi-disciplinary approach that brings together expertise in young people’s wellbeing with creative and playful pedagogy. We have coalesced two leading research centres at The University of Sydney to drive this work. Learn more.

Academic leads: Robyn Ewing, Michael Anderson, Maree Teesson, Olivia Karaolis, Amanda Niland, Fotini Vasilopoulos.

Affiliated partner: the Matilda Centre.

This area of work aims to explore and advocate for the fundamental role of arts and culture at all stages of disaster management and at all levels of operation in the mitigation and adaptation to climate risks and impacts. It will consolidate existing knowledge and build evidence for policy and inclusion across the disaster ecosystem. It will build on current practice, and develop resources to position the role of culture and the arts as a vital contributor to climate resilience and its impacts on our communities’ wellbeing. 

Academic leads: Claire Hooker with Michael Anderson and Natasha Beaumont.

Affiliated partners:  Arts Health Network NSW.

This is a multi-faceted, evolving project, leading an innovative process of teaching and learning.

The program draws on years of research into the practices and benefits of Drama Rich Pedagogy and its relationship to Deep Literacy, which you can read about in Robyn Ewing’s book on the topic: Drama Rich Pedagogy and Becoming Deeply Literate (pdf, 920.4KB).

Investigating the outcomes of a multi-arts professional learning program on English as an Additional Language or Dialect involving teachers, learners, and teaching artists, the results of the pilot study will soon be published. A program last year saw schools in high EAL/D and low SEO areas at both primary and secondary levels work with dedicated Teaching Artists to improve literacy and deeper levels of learning.

It also continues years of work in collaboration first with Sydney Theatre Company and now with Australian Theatre for Young People. Since 2009, more than 35,000 teachers and students have participated in the program's initial version, entitiled School Drama. The program is currently being re-imagined and expanded into Arts Rich Lit, a new form expanding across artistic disciplines, with a launch expected in 2026.

Download the full School Drama report (pdf, 6.9MB) 

The EAL/D strand of the program welcomes enquiries from schools that may wish to participate. Learn more.

The pedagogical strategies developed are now informing the CREATE Centre's new microcredential in Teaching Artistry. Find out more and enrol here.

Academic Leads: Professor Emerita Robyn Ewing, Dr Kathy Ruston, Eliza Oliver.

Investigating the value of theatre for young people globally. This study includes an evidence gap map and qualitative report produced in partnership with ASSITEJ. 

Watch the CREATE Centre's scholars present their findings here.

Academic Leads: A/Prof Kelly Freebody, Professor Michael Anderson, Eliza Oliver.

This project is in collaboration with Barking Gecko Theatre Company.

If theatre is an interweaving of memory and liveness, and learning is constructed in negotiation and dialogue, theatre education offers a powerful place to encounter the unexpected, to extend horizons of expectations and consider where we are positioned in the world.

It is material and ephemeral, and recognizes that meaning is made not only in the symbols, metaphors and narratives of drama, but between spaces and places, in the gaps and the silences of reflection as well as in the movement of and activity of practice (Nicholson, 2011, p.)  

This research is investigating the following questions from the participant children’s point of view: Does theatre matter to children? If so, how? What happens when young children are given access to three live theatre performances and related pre- and post-performance activities over a two-year period? What do they: wonder about? Imagine? Hope for? Remember?  

Academic leads: Professor Emerita Robyn Ewing AM and Professor Michael Anderson, in collaboration with Barking Gecko Theatre Company

Bell Shakespeare and the CREATE Centre, University are undertaking a multi-phased research project.

This began with an initial introductory scoping of the research in Australia and internationally about the impact of engaging young people with Shakespeare and the nature of their engagement.

The current phase of the proposed project focuses on a multi-site case study of Bell Shakespeare’s programs in regional/remote schools including live performances and tailored artists in residence programs for teachers and students. This phase will investigate what happens when young people in remote NSW schools have access to Bell Shakespeare’s in-school residencies and Player performances and related activities from the participant young people’s and teachers’ perspectives. Data is being gathered from student focus groups; teacher and principal interviews; and participants’ arts-informed responses.

Academic leads: Natasha Beaumont, Associate Professor Kelly Freebody, Professor Michael Anderson, Professor Robyn Ewing.

Investigating wellbeing, transferable skills, and perceived employability for young people following multi-arts workshops on the far south coast of NSW. 

Academic Leads: Eliza Oliver, Professor Michael Anderson, Professor Emerita Robyn Ewing.

In the face of an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, education can make the difference as to whether people embrace the challenges they are confronted with or whether they are defeated by them. And in an era characterised by a new explosion of scientific knowledge and a growing array of complex societal problems, it is appropriate that curricula should continue to evolve, perhaps in radical ways.

This project examines the concept of empathy as an essential aspect of the teacher training curriculum, and suggests how it can be taught. 

Dr Alison Grove O'Grady has published her findings and reflections on this groundbreaking and still evolving process. Find Pedagogy, Empathy and Praxis here.

Academic leads: Dr Alison Grove O’Grady, Thomas De Angelis.

An evaluation of a series of site-specific drama skills workshops undertaken with young people on the NSW South Coast after the bushfires. In partnership with the Family Place. The workshops will culminate in public performances for the communities.

Lead researcher: Thomas De Angelis, Professor Michael Anderson, Professor Robyn Ewing.

Each year we host the Shakespeare Memorial Lecture, an event free and open to the public to hear from the most exciting practitioners of Shakespeare’s works. Previous lectures have been given by John Bell, Janine Watson, Kate Gaul, Laurie Johnson, Kylie Bracknell and Margaret Thanos. Topics covered include rehearsal practice, reading the sociopolitical into the text, landscape, book history and revitalising Indigenouos language. Each lecture is then edited into a book format and published, with the partnership of WestWords, under the CREATE Papers banner.

Download the books for free.

A Community-Centred Arts Initiative for Youth Empowerment and Cohesion.

TheatreConnect is a multi-year, arts-based, youth engagement program developed by the CREATE Centre at the University of Sydney, in partnership with local South Western Sydney theatre companies. The program is designed to foster community cohesion and resilience among young people aged 11-18 in South Western Sydney.

Through week-long, site-specific theatre workshops, TheatreConnect helps young people explore their identity, build confidence and critical empathy, all while connecting with peers and community, using performing arts as the platform for self-expression and social connection. 

TheatreConnect is funded through Multicultural NSW’s COMPACT program, which supports community resilience by fostering social cohesion, and empowering youth to counter extremism and division. It will be expanded and adapted in regionally specific forms to continue in other partnerships in the future,

Transforming Schools began as a project in 2017 to consider the “how” of school transformation.

Emerging from the books Transforming Schools and Transforming Organizations, the project now features more than 40 schools in long-term partnerships and several PhD, master's degree and honours students researching the how of transformation.

This work undertaken in partnership with 4C Transformative Learning and not only researches transformation and the 4Cs (creativity, critical reflection, communication, collaboration), but investigates how schools throughout Australia are making it a reality.