A new series from the Pulitzer Prize — nominated podcast Ear Hustle, “The Loop,” began airing on October 8. The episodes, recorded in New York City, explore the lives of young people in secure facilities and how they benefited from participating in Drama Club, a prison-based nonprofit that teaches improv skills. The podcasts are directly tied to a multi-year research grant co-led by Adam Brown, an associate professor at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work, who studied Drama Club for the government. He discussed the project, his role, and how this groundbreaking work informs his teaching.
Q: You were a co-investigator on a major grant from the Department of Homeland Security. Can you tell us about the project’s origins?
A: It was an interesting journey. We initially wrote a grant proposal for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to start a center for anti-violence, with the intention of studying Drama Club. However, a few weeks before the deadline, the war in Ukraine began, and the funding was reallocated.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security was seeking to fund projects that explored mechanisms for curbing youth violence. We saw the apparent applicability of our work, so we shifted our proposal and were awarded around $890,000. My colleagues served as the principal investigators for the overall grant. At the same time, my role as the principal investigator for the New York City site made me a co-investigator on the project.
Q: The research centered on the nonprofit Drama Club. What was the study’s goal?
A: Drama Club has been doing incredible work for more than a decade, teaching improv drama skills to young people in secure settings, including facilities such as Crossroads, Children’s Village, and Rikers Island. They had strong anecdotal evidence and support from private funders, but they needed a rigorous, empirical evaluation to prove their program’s efficacy.
Our goal over the three-year study was to serve as serious researchers, evaluating the program to determine if it was working. It was a challenging process due to the bureaucracy of the justice system, but our role was to help everyone involved — to help all the boats rise, not to criticize. The study officially concluded on September 30, 2025.