 Karen L. Erickson, Executive Director
Karen L. Erickson is a recognized national leader in Arts Education who has worked with schools and arts organizations internationally and in nearly all fifty states. She is the Executive Director of Creative Directions, a company she guides with her husband. She is a National Workshop Leader for the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. sharing her expertise with teachers, artists, and administrators on tour to the Kennedy Center National Partnership sites.
Karen consults with schools transforming into arts magnet or arts centered schools, trains education and arts leaders in curriculum integration, assessment, long range planning, professional development preparation, and curriculum mapping. She also works with arts organizations to train local artists in arts and education practices. Ms. Erickson has had the privilege of being a co-developer and presenter in a long term teacher training program for the Sarasota schools, Creative Drama for Creative Learning (CDCL) as well as with the Alabama Institute for Education in the Arts.
She is the author of eight books on drama and education including The Arts: Keystones to Learning, Getting Started with Drama: A guide for 1st-8th Grades, Getting Started with Drama in Kindergarten, First and Second Grade Drama Guides, Integrated Units in a Dramatic Framework, From Page to Stage: Fifty Original Stories for Classroom Drama, and 181 Favorite Level I Ideas for Drama among others. Ms. Erickson was a co-author of the Illinois Fine Arts Curriculum Resource Guide, the Illinois State Learning Standards, Integrated Curriculum Arts Project (ICAP), Illinois Performance Assessment Tools and the Illinois Performance Descriptors in the arts.
In professional theater, Ms Erickson worked with the Goodman Theater where she assisted Tennessee Williams on two world premiers, Center Theater, Trinity Square Ensemble Theater, and for Pegasus Players in various roles from artistic director, stage director, playwright and actress. Ms. Erickson is the author of 8 plays for young audiences and toured for 8 years in Children’s Theater productions. She is on the Board of the Illinois Alliance for Arts Education, serving as President for 2 years, and served on the board of the Kennedy Center National Alliance for Arts Education for 4 years, one year as National Chair.
kerickson@creativedirections.org
|
 Ed Erickson, Associate Director
Ed Erickson has worked as a classroom teacher, professional actor, director, and college instructor. Ed began his career as a high school drama, theater, language arts, and radio & TV teacher. He has also worked as a professional theater actor, director, and designer for well over two decades in a variety of theaters in the Chicago area.
Besides teaching as a guest instructor in the graduate program at Columbia College, Ed works as Associate Director of Creative Directions where he mentors teachers, conducts workshops, plans programs, and teaches students. During his tenure with Creative Directions, he has presented workshops in drama, theater, classroom management, assessment, and integration statewide, nationally, and internationally. He co-authored the Chicago Public Schools Drama/Theater Standards and is often called upon to present at regional and national conferences such as ASCD.
ederickson@creativedirections.org
|
 Beth Bowman, Program Manager
Beth Bowman has worked as an independent consultant with Creative Directions for nearly ten years editing and writing drama and professional development resources and guiding the development of programs to meet the varied requests of schools and arts organizations. Beth conducted research for documentation of the Chicago Public School’s Improving Academic Achievement through the Arts (IAAA) initiative and contributed an article on leadership in arts integration to the book The Arts: Keystones to Learning. As a teaching artist, she has taught drama to preschoolers and elementary age students and has presented staff development workshops throughout Illinois on topics such as early childhood drama, drama and character education, and drama and science. Before coming to Creative Directions, Beth worked and trained as a professional actor and was a dramaturgy intern for the Northlight Theatre. Her most recent artistic work includes performing in Jessica Hannah's interdisciplinary art piece, "Showroom No. 6," installed at Columbia College and other Chicago galleries.
bbowman@creativedirections.org
|
 Jacob Watson, Arts Education Consultant
Jacob Watson is a director, designer, and theatre educator originally from Belmont, MA. As a consultant with Creative Directions, he assists with the development and marketing of drama residencies, professional developments, and other integration projects. Jacob has been teaching drama for over six years, and currently works as a freelance teaching artist across Chicago. His experience working with youth K-12 includes everything from in-school residencies to after school programs and professional theatre outreach programs.
Jacob holds a B.A. in Theatre from the School of Communication at Northwestern University, where he served as Artistic Director of the award-winning theatre for youth organization Purple Crayon Players. Jacob's work with Purple Crayon Players has been featured in Incite/Insight magazine, as well as at the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE) national conference. He currently serves as one of the AATE's two Illinois State Representatives. Jacob is also a member of For Youth Inquiry, a new collective of artists, activists, and educators committed to fostering safe, accessible conversations with youth about sexual health.
jwatson@creativedirections.org |
|
