Drama Department Mission and History
District 65 Drama Department Mission
The District 65 Drama Department, established in 1927, is the longest thriving creative drama program in the United States. Under the guidance of creative drama specialists, this nationally renowned drama department provides the children of Evanston with exceptional theatre education. Central to that mission is the recognition that creative drama is both a theatrical art form and a powerful teaching methodology.
History of the Program
Creative Drama was introduced into the Evanston/Skokie school system in 1924 by Winifred Ward, Northwestern University Professor and founder of the American Creative Drama Movement. For thirty years drama specialists trained by Miss Ward and her successors, Rita Criste, Barbara McIntyre and Anne Thurman taught drama to Evanston students in grades four through eight. Prior to the 1970's several pilot projects were developed and implemented in which talented and gifted primary and elementary students received drama instruction. District-wide drama classes, however, were limited to grades four through eighth.
The Evanston Children's Theatre, founded by Miss Ward in the late 1920's, was a joint venture with Northwestern University. Fully staged plays for young people were presented in the Evanston junior high school auditoriums. Plays were directed by District 65 and Northwestern teachers with adult roles being filled by Northwestern students and children's roles being played by junior high students. This endeavor enabled all school children to experience live theatre at very low prices. When rising insurance costs forced the University to with draw from the program it was reorganized as Theatre 65 and continued production until the early 1970's when funding cuts necessitated its closure.
The Elementary Creative Drama Program, as it had been conceived and implemented, was terminated, as were those in music and visual arts, during the funding cutbacks of the 1970's. 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 classroom 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 Citizen's Committee, appointed by the District 65 Board of Education, surveyed existing fine arts programs in surrounding areas, familiarized itself with recent trends in fine arts education, and identified and charted exemplary fine arts programs throughout the United States. This 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 the elementary schools. During the 1984-85 school year music and visual arts were reinstated in grades K-5 while drama was offered only in grades four and five, as it had been in the past. A survey of District 65 principals, classroom teachers, and drama specialists taken during the spring of 1985 indicated strong support for extending the drama program to the primary grades. The superintendent recommended the inclusion of grades K-3 in the drama program and the Board approved his proposal in the summer of 1985.
Between the years of 1985 and 2001, drama was taught to students in grades K-5 by Drama Specialists as part of the weekly Fine Arts rotation along with Music, Visual Art and Library. Students in Kindergarten received 30 minutes of Drama a week throughout the school year. Students in grades 1-5 received 40 minutes of Drama a week throughout the school year. In 1999, The American Alliance for Theater and Education awarded the entire department with their Creative Drama Award recognizing their outstanding achievement and service as a Creative Drama Specialists.
In the spring of 2002, the school board voted to eliminate kindergarten through third grade drama continuing to require the classes for students in fourth through eighth grades. Third grade drama was reinstated in September of 2012 and in October of the same year, K-2 grade drama was added. ~Today, students in the district currently receive drama instruction in grades K-8 taught by specialists. The strong relationship with Northwestern continues with many Northwestern theatre students and their Professors, Rives Collins, Lynn Kelso and Betsy Quinn working closely with the District 65 Drama Specialists. This relationship includes NU students interning in the schools, middle school students performing with Northwestern students in plays and NU advanced creative drama students teaching the District 65 fourth through sixth grade enrichment drama classes.
Department Philosophy
Creative Drama is an improvisational, non-exhibitional, process-centered form of drama in which participants are guided by a leader to imagine, enact and reflect upon human experience.
The Creative Drama process is dynamic. The leader guides the group to explore, develop, express and communicate ideas, concepts and feelings through dramatic enactment. In creative drama the group improvises action and dialogue appropriate to the content it is exploring, using the impulse of play and the elements of theatre to give form and meaning to the experience. The primary purpose of creative drama is to foster personality growth and to facilitate learning rather than to train actors for the stage. Creative Drama is used not only to teach the elements of the art form of theatre, but to make history and literature come alive, develop empathy, strengthen oral language skills, cultivate creativity, enhance collaborative decision-making, exercise the imagination and to develop ensemble. Students work with the leader to enact a scene, story, historical event, concept or idea reinforcing elements of story structure including character, plot, setting and conflict.
One of the greatest strengths of the drama program is its ability to reach all students, not just those who are successful in core academic areas. Because theatre is an organically differentiated art form incorporating visual art, dance, music, writing and technology, creative drama has the ability to reach students with varied abilities and interests. In class activities are differentiated to ensure that each student can be successful in the lesson. Students are encouraged to demonstrate learning and creativity through verbal and kinesthetic expression, writing, drawing, collaborative planning and various forms of reflection.