Evanston School District 65

Creative drama was introduced into the Evanston/Skokie, Illinois school system in the late 1920s through the efforts of Winifred Ward, a Northwestern University children's theatre and creative drama professor. For thirty years, theatre specialists trained by Ward and her successors taught drama district-wide to Evanston students in grades four through eight.

During this time there were also other special drama education projects that were created for primary and elementary school students. One of these, the Children's Theatre of Evanston founded by Ward in 1925, was a joint venture with Northwestern University. Fully staged plays for young people were presented in the Evanston junior high school auditoriums. The plays were directed by District 65 drama teachers and/or by children's theatre professors and graduate students from Northwestern University. Adult roles were acted by the university students and children's roles were played by middle school students. In 1967 the Theatre changed its name to Theatre 65. In 1971 District 65 withdrew funding for the Theatre. The theatre continued to operate with the support of private donations and grants, but eventually closed in 1976.

The Elementary Creative Drama Program, as originally conceived, along with the music and visual arts programs were terminated during the funding cutbacks of the 1970s. For over ten years, the drama program was administered by a Drama Chairperson, who developed a drama curriculum for use by classroom teachers, provided materials and in-service training for these teachers and visited elementary classrooms on a rotating basis. Specialists continued to teach drama in the middle schools.

In 1983, a K-5 Fine Arts Citizens Committee, appointed by the District 65 Board of Education, surveyed local fine arts programs and exemplary programs throughout the United States. They also familiarized themselves with recent trends in fine arts education. Their report was submitted to Superintendent Robert P. Campbell in February of 1984. Later that spring, the Board of Education voted to reinstate fine arts classes taught by specialists in kindergarten through fifth grades; however, drama was only to be offered in grades four and five. A survey of District 65 principals, classroom teachers and drama specialists taken during the spring of 1985, indicated strong support for extending the program to kindergarten through third grades. The superintendent made this recommendation and the Board approved the proposal in the summer of 1985.

In the late 1990s, District 65 and Evanston High School District 202 developed performance standards for all core subject areas, which included the Fine Arts. In the spring of 2002, the school board voted to eliminate kindergarten through third grade drama classes, leaving district-wide instruction by specialists only in grades 4-8.

The strong relationship between the Northwestern University Theatre Department and District 65 has continued throughout the years. In the 1990s through 2000s, university students and their professors, Rives Collins and Betsy Quinn, the latter a District 65 Drama Specialist at Haven Middle School, taught Northwestern advanced creative drama students and supervised their work in fourth through sixth grade gifted drama classes. Middle school students performed alongside Northwestern students in plays.

In 1999, the District 65 Drama Program was honored by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) with the Creative Drama Award for excellence in drama instruction. The award was presented to Dr. Debra Hill, Assistant Superintendent, and Mrs. Anne Lefkovitz, Drama Department Chair, at AATEs national conference in Chicago. Other District 65 drama teachers who received AATEs Creative Drama Award throughout the years are: Anne Thurman (1978), Rita Criste (1979), Laurel Serleth (1986), Nancy Norvell Ball (1988), Elizabeth (Betsy) M. Quinn (1997), Laurel Serleth (2001) and Anne Lefkovitz (2005). Gloria Bond Clunie, a District 65 middle school drama specialist, received AATEs Ann Flagg Multicultural Award in 1994. Clunie also received AATEs Distinguished Play Award, Category A for Plays Primarily for Middle and Secondary Age Audiences, in 1999, for her play, North Star published by Dramatic Publishing.

From the guide to the Evanston School District 65 Drama Program Collection, 1959-1990, 1964-1988, (Arizona State University Libraries Child Drama Collection)