Award Descriptions
Achievement Awards
Ann Flagg Multicultural Award
AATE Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award
Ann Elgood Youth Theatre Director Award
Barbara Salisbury Wills Alliance Award
Campton Bell Lifetime Achievement Award
Charlotte B. Chorpenning Playwright Award
Dina Rees Evans Theatre in Our Schools Award
F. Loren Winship Secondary School Theatre Award
John C. Barner Teacher of the Year Award
The Johnny Saldaña Outstanding Professor of Theatre Education Award
Lin Wright Special Recognition Award
Monte Meacham Award
Orlin Corey Award for Artistic Excellence
Sara Spencer Artistic Achievement Award
Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award
Research Awards
AATE Research Award
Distinguished Dissertation/Thesis Award
Judith Kase-Cooper Honorary Research Award
Awards Presented By Affiliated Organzations
Winifred Ward Scholar
Don and Elizabeth Doyle Fellowship
Publishing Awards
Distinguished Book Award
Distinguished Play Award
Achievement Awards (Deadline: February 1, 2025)
Ann Flagg Multicultural Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE of any ethnic, racial or cultural background, this award honors an individual, organization or company who has made significant contributions to the field of theatre/drama for youth or arts education dealing with multicultural issues and/or reaching diverse audiences and constituencies. The award is named in honor of Ann Flagg, who worked as an elementary drama teacher in the Evanston, Illinois School District 65 and as a director and playwright at Karamu House in Cleveland, Ohio. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
AATE Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors an undergraduate individual whose project or paper demonstrates superior effort in relationship to the 2018 Conference Theme “Rise-Up!”. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Barbara Salisbury Wills Alliance Award
Open to members of AATE, this award honors an individual for long-term and sustained service to the organization. It is named in honor of Barbara Salisbury Wills, who served as AATE's President at its inception and as the first Executive Director. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Campton Bell Lifetime Achievement Award
Open to members of AATE, this award honors an individual for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the field. It is named in honor of Campton Bell who served as President of CTC, Professor at the University of Denver and one of the founders of the Children's Theatre Foundation. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Charlotte B. Chorpenning Playwright Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors a nationally known writer of outstanding plays for children, recognizing a body of work as opposed to a single play. It is named in honor of playwright Charlotte B. Chorpenning of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Ann Elgood Youth Theatre Director Award
The Ann Elgood Youth Theatre Director Award honors an individual for outstanding achievement as a director in a youth theatre. Like its namesake, the recipient serves as a model of excellence and innovation as an artistic, educational and/or management director in a theatre in which some, or all, of the performers are young people.TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Dina Reese Evans Theatre in Our Schools Award
Open to AATE members, these two awards honor exemplary programs and individuals in support of Theatre in Our Schools, a project of AATE and the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA). The two categories include: one for a State-wide program and one for an Individual. This award is named in honor of Dina Rees Evans who was a secondary school educator, director of Cain Park Theatre and one of the founders of the national Secondary School Theatre Association. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
F. Loren Winship Secondary School Theatre Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors an individual or organization for long-term outstanding contribution to the mission of secondary school theatre. It is named in honor of F. Loren Winship, director of drama and theatre activities for the Texas University Interscholastic League, whose efforts helped Texas become the first state to adopt a certification program for high school drama teachers. Given in honor of those pioneer educators in high school theatre who established the secondary school theatre movement in the United States. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
John C. Barner Teacher of the Year Award
Open to members of AATE, this award honors an individual currently teaching theatre arts on the secondary school level and who has developed an exemplary secondary school theatre arts program. It is named in honor of John C. Barner, a founder of the first professional organization for secondary school teachers of theatre. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
The Johnny Saldaña Outstanding Professor of Theatre Education Award
The award is open to any college/university professor who has demonstrated excellence in all of the following areas: teaching, research and/or creative activity, and service.. Each category is broadly construed to include its constituent parts (e.g., teaching also includes advising and mentoring; service should be at the university, regional, and national levels, research and/or creative activity can be defined by the wide variety of professional practices widely recognized as research and creative activity in the academy). The award is open to faculty at any stage in their careers; it is not intended as a lifetime achievement award.
The nomination package consists of a nomination letter and three additional letters of support. Of these four letters, at least one must be from current or former student(s) of the professor speaking , at minimum, to her/his teaching excellence. A second must be from a supervisor or colleague at the professor’s current institution speaking, at minimum, to her/his teaching as well as her/his service to the university. A third must from a nationally-recognized scholar and/or creative artist who is able to speak, at minimum, to the significant impact of the professor’s research or creative activity. The fourth letter may be from any individual who speaks to how the nominee meets the criteria. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Lin Wright Special Recognition Award
Open to members of AATE, this award honors persons who have established special programs, developed experimental work, made a distinctive educational contribution or provided meritorious service thus furthering theatre and drama for young people. This award recognizes and supports these unique contributions of artists, educators and advocates wherever they are found. It is named in honor of Lin Wright, Professor and Chair of the Theatre Department at Arizona State University, researcher and President of CTAA. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Monte Meacham Award
Open to individuals and organizations outside of AATE, this award honors persons or organizations for outstanding contributions to theatre for youth. It is named in honor of Monte Meacham, founder and director of Children's World Theatre from the late 1940s until his death in an auto accident while on tour in 1955. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Orlin Corey Award for Artistic Excellence
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors a particular artistic achievement or a unique artistic contribution to theatre for young audiences. It can be presented at any time in an artist’s career including, but not limited to, directors, designers, actors, choreographers, composers, puppeteers and videographers. It is named in honor of Orlin Corey, who directed and produced many plays for young audiences and led the Everyman Players to productions off-Broadway, around the USA and the world. From 1974-2000, he was publisher of Anchorage Press. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Sara Spencer Artistic Achievement Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors artistic theatre practice of long duration and wide recognition by either an established theatre for sustained and exceptional achievement or an individual who has accomplished meritorious achievement in the field of theatre for young audiences. It is named in honor of Sara Spencer, founder of Anchorage Press, President of CTC 1953-55 and one of the founders of the Children's Theatre Foundation. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Zeta Phi Eta-Winifred Ward Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company Award
Open to an organizational member of AATE, this award honors a theatre company serving young audiences that has been in operation for at least two full years, but not more than five, which has attained a high level of artistic production and possesses sound management practices while having stimulated community interest in its endeavors. It is named in honor of Winifred Ward, often considered the ‘mother of creative drama,’ who taught at Northwestern University, developed the creative drama programming at Evanston Public Schools and launched the Children’s Theater Conference, which became AATE. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Publishing Awards (Deadline: January 15, 2025)
Distinguished Book Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors an author and publisher for the outstanding book relating to any aspect of the field published during the past calendar year (January through December). The book should be one in which the scholarship or resources of the field is enhanced by its publication. Criteria may include, but are not limited to, logic and consistency of organization, thoroughness of topic coverage, writing style, philosophy and approach; and appropriateness for intended audience. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Distinguished Play Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors playwrights and publishers of the most outstanding plays for young people published or written during the past calendar year (January to December). Published or unpublished plays are permitted. Plays may be nominated by publishers, or by members of AATE. Self-nominations are permitted. In accordance with AATE’s Anti-Racism Plan, publishers must submit at least one play by a BIPOC author. The successful script should demonstrate superiority in execution, delineation of characters, theatricality, and appropriateness of the style. Selected scripts should respect young people's understandings and abilities, providing them with perspectives on their own experiences while enhancing their imagination and emotional growth. Plays in translation should be submitted in the appropriate category for source material; a play translated from an original play falls in Category A or C, and a play translated from an adaptation falls in Category C or D
Qualifying submissions are one-act (30 pages) in length or longer. TO APPLY CLICK HERE.
Includes:
Category A-- Plays primarily for Pre-K and elementary school-age audiences
Category B-- Plays primarily for middle and secondary school age audiences
Category C-- Adaptations from existing children's literature primarily for Pre-K and elementary age audiences
Category D-- Adaptations from existing children's literature primarily for middle and secondary age audiences
Please notify Alexis Truitt at [email protected] when you have sent copies of the books/scripts to the AATE Office.
CLICK HERE TO REQUEST MORE INFORMATION!
Research Awards (Deadline: March 31, 2025)
These awards honor outstanding research relating to the field of Drama/Theatre Education. Research methodologies may include naturalistic/ethnographic, descriptive/qualitative, empirical/quantitative, theoretical, historical, critical or other scholarly approaches.
AATE Research Award
Open to members or non-members of AATE, this award honors scholars whose research contributes significantly to the field of drama/theatre with or for young people. Submissions are welcome from a wide variety of research traditions that explore any topic related to educational theatre / drama, applied theatre, and/or theatre for young audiences. For the Research Awards Manual, please click HERE.
Distinguished Dissertation/Thesis Award
Open to members of AATE, these awards honor research that focuses on questions pertinent to informal Drama in Education or to more formal Theatre produced for, by or with young people. The award includes two categories: Dissertation and Thesis.
Judith Kase-Cooper Honorary Research Award
Open to long-standing members of AATE, this award honors distinguished scholars who have contributed significantly to the development of theory and research in the field of drama/Theatre & Education. The focus is on cumulative work accomplished over a number of years rather than on one study. It is named in honor of Judith Kase-Cooper, founder and longtime head of AATE's International Center for Studies in Theatre Education.
CLICK HERE TO REQUEST MORE INFORMATION!
Awards Presented By Affiliated Organizations
Please note: The Winifred Ward Scholarship and the Doyle Fellowship are reviewed by separate committees. For nomination guidelines for these awards, please click here.
Winifred Ward Scholar
This award honors a graduate-level scholar of demonstrated intellectual and artistic ability in child drama/theatre. Nominees are judged on the basis of scholarship, faculty recommendations, indication of strong professional interest and growth, successful performance in some aspect of children's theatre or creative drama work and other criteria. It is named in honor of Winifred Ward, often considered the ‘mother of creative drama,’ who taught at Northwestern University, developed the creative drama programming at Evanston Public Schools and launched the Children’s Theater Conference, which became AATE.
The Winifred Ward Scholarship is awarded annually by the Winifred Ward Memorial Fund, Inc. (WWMF) and selected by the Winifred Ward Scholarship Committee, appointed by the WWMF Board.
Don and Elizabeth Doyle Fellowship
Open to a student enrolled in a graduate degree program in a United States college or university with a theatre program that supports drama and theatre for youth, this award honors an outstanding graduate-level student of demonstrated artistic ability in the area of Theatre for Youth. The student must have at least one additional year of study to complete. In addition, the candidate should indicate a professional interest in pursuing career goals consistent with the legacy of the Doyles. It is named for Don and Elizabeth Doyle for a lifetime of creative work in Theatre for Youth and awarded annually by the Don and Elizabeth Doyle Fellowship Foundation
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