Efficacy of theatre activities in facial expression categorization in schizophrenia

•The efficacy of theatre activities for improving symptoms in those who have schizophrenia has not yet been established.•Persons with schizophrenia experience problems in face emotion recognition.•A controlled psychophysical test was used to assess emotion recognition.•Compared with matched controls persons with schizophrenia show difficulties in recognizing fear.•Theatre activities increase the identification rate of fear in matched persons with schizophrenia.