Dorothy Aldrich Papers

Dorothy Aldrich, director, university professor, creative drama specialist, author and book editor, received her A.B. in English from Tufts University in 1936. She was also married in 1936 and eventually had four sons.

Aldrich began volunteering for the Keene [New Hampshire] Children's Theatre in 1950 and was appointed its temporary Director in 1951, and directed the play, Rip Van Winkle.

She received her M.A. in Theatre, specializing in Children's Theatre, from the University of Pittsburgh in 1965, where she studied with Barbara McIntyre. Her thesis was titled, A Study of Child Audience Reaction to a Controversial Character in a Children's Play, which examined responses to the character Reynard in the university's production of the play, Reynard the Fox.

Upon graduation she directed a government funded creative drama program for fourth through sixth graders in four schools in Pittsburgh's inner-city from 1965 to 1966. The program reached about 1000 students.

In 1966 she returned to New England. From 1966 to 1968 she served as the creative drama specialist and taught state-wide teacher workshops and classes for children as part of Project TRY (Theatre Resources for Youth), which was based at the University of New Hampshire. From 1968 to 1972 she was on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Her course offerings included: creative drama (with demonstration classes in elementary schools); children's theatre; and oral interpretation of children's literature. Aldrich also directed full-scale productions of plays for young audiences and two studio productions of Story Theatre.

From 1972 to 1975 Aldrich served as the creative drama specialist working with John Sharpham in a Core Program in the arts for elementary education majors at Illinois State University at Bloomington-Normal. From 1975 to 1977 she became a freelance teacher offering workshops for teachers and eight to twelve week children's theatre programs in elementary schools in Keene, New Hampshire and the Clearwater, Florida area.

She was an active member of the national children's theatre association, then known as the Children's Theatre Association of America (CTAA), now called the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE), serving as Recording Secretary from 1970-1971. In the early 1970s she collaborated with creative drama colleagues and wrote a proposal for a new CTAA award titled, the Creative Drama for Human Awareness Award, to be presented to teachers whose focus was on personal student growth, not on formal productions. She served as chair of the selection committee for this award or as Chair of the CTAA Awards Committee from 1974-1986.

In 1970 Aldrich was invited to become co-editor with Dorothy Schwartz of Give Them Roots and Wings: A Guide to Drama in the Elementary School. She was responsible for selecting lesson plans written by specialists in the field in five areas of concentration. This book was published by the American Theatre Association in 1972, and revised and published by Anchorage Press in 1985. Both editors won the CTAA Special Recognition Award in 1974 for their work on this publication.

In the late 1980s Aldrich remarried and changed her last name to MacKenzie.