NEW YORK: Teens can learn valuable emotional lessons in the process of putting on a high school musical, a new case study of a Midwestern theatre programme demonstrates.

"We tend to think of adolescence as a time when emotions are out of control," Dr Reed W Larson of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the study's lead author, said. "But the message here is that in the right circumstances, adolescents can be quite attentive ... and really learn some sophisticated things about the trickiness of emotions." Larson says his investigation shouldn't be interpreted as showing that every adolescent who takes part in a theatre production will experience emotional growth, but instead as demonstrating that young people are indeed capable of controlling and learning from both their emotions and the emotions of others.

To better understand how emotional development occurs in the context of youth programmes, Larson and his colleague Jane R Brown interviewed the cast and crew every two weeks during the three months it took them to put on a production of Les Miserables. They also interviewed the two adults involved - the director, who was a local music teacher; and the producer, who headed the school's theatre programme.

The cast and crew, who ranged in age from 14 to 17, reported gaining an understanding of the wide variation in "experience and expression of emotions" among their peers, and learning about how they were affected by their own and other's emotions.

Two years after the production, when they were re-interviewed, some said the most important lesson they had learned was how to control their own anger and frustration in group settings, while also coping with negative emotions by talking about them "up front." They said they learned how to use positive emotions to motivate themselves and others and to ease tensions, while keeping expressions of personal pride under control.

Key aspects of the students' emotional learning were both the repeated opportunities to participate in emotional episodes, and guidance of adult leaders.