The Drama and Theatre for the Young graduate program was founded at Eastern Michigan University in the early 1960s. The first performance was 1964, Many Moons, directed by program founder Virginia Glasgow Koste. The program focuses drama and theatre in terms of developmental purposes, community engagement, theatre for young participants, and theatre for intergenerational audiences. Students in the program work with local schools, and are involved with traveling productions, as well as main stage performances. Many students end up directing their own productions, or even writing their own scripts as part of their theses or final projects.

Jessica "Decky" Alexander, 1994-Present. Alexander received her BA in Theatre and Sociology from Lawrence University in 1991, and a MFA in Drama/Theatre for the Young from Eastern Michigan University in 1996. Her research focuses on the use of theatre for faculty development: community performance; community art and activism, and academic service-learning. In 1997, Alexander founded Eastern Michigan University's CloseUP Theatre Troupe, which travels to universities and colleges performing. In 2008, in collaboration with th eFAculty Development Center at EMU, founded C2 (CloseUP Classroom) a performing ensemble of faculty and students who create theatre for faculty on issues related to teaching and learning. Alexander is the recipient of the Ronald Collins Distinguished Faculty Award for Service, the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Honor Award, the 2007 Alumni Teaching Award, the 2007 SACLU Washtenaw County Civil Liberties Champion Award, the 2005 Institutional Values Award for Diversity, Multicultural and Human Dignity, the 2002 Division of Enrollment Services Faculty Award, and the Gold Medallion Outstanding Faculty Award, in 1998. Alexander is active in her professional organizations presenting on numerous topics over the past 5 years.

Virginia Glasgow Michilak Koste, 1962-1987. Virginia "Ginny" Glasgow Koste was born into a family of stage performers and spent her entire life working in theatre and theatre education. She earned her BS from Vassar College and her MA from Wayne State University. Koste founded EMU's Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young (they known as Theatre of the Young or TOY) becoming the first of its kind in Michigan. The first production put on by the new program was Many Moons directed by Koste. Koste is known within the profession for her playwriting, receiving the prestigious Charlotte B. Chorpenning Cup for a distinguished body of work in playwriting for young audiences and the Distinguished Play Award for The Chicago Gypsies. Koste taught at Eastern Michigan University for 25 years, retiring in 1986. During her tenure she taught courses in improvisation, theatre for children, advanced improvisation, and a seminar for dramatic arts for children. She also wrote and directed numerous plays including: Many Moons, Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Wonder, The Dragon, The Trial of Tom Sawyer.

Thelma McDaniel, 1961-1986. McDaniel grew up in Staten Island New York and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1946 with a major in the Dramatic Arts. She earned her MA from Eastern Michigan University in 1964 with an emphasis in elementary education, and joined the faculty of EMU in 1961 in the then named Department of Speech and Dramatic Arts. McDaniel worked to help develop outreach programs within the Theatre of the Young program, which has lead to productions touring into areas schools and community centers every year since 1968. She also wrote and directed a number of touring productions, which include: Let's Go Movin' On, Rain, Wind and Sun Tales, A Magic To Do, and All One. She also wrote play adaptations to The Wind in the Willows and Little Women, which both premiered as mainstage productions. In 1980, McDaniel collaborated with Dr. Sandra McClennan of the Department of Special Education to design a developmental drama program for mentally impaired adults that utilized simple dramatic exercises of sound, sense and movement. The program was made possible by McDaniel's Faculty Research Fellowship and McClennan's sabbatical leave. She retired from EMU in 1986, but remained active in children's theatre at the state, national, and international level, with particular involvement in the American Alliance for Theatre Education, the National Drama and Therapy Association, and the International Amateur Theatre Association. She is the recipient of the prestigious Creative Drama for Human Awareness Award presented by the American Alliance for Theatre Education.

Karen Smith-Meyer, 1986-2001. Smith-Meyer received her B.F.A. in acting and directing from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, and her M.A. and M.F.A. in Drama/Theatre For the Young (DTFY) from Eastern Michigan University. Smith-Meyer was the very first person to be enrolled in, and graduate from, EMU’s DTFY program with her M.F.A. She joined the faculty of EMU in the then named Communication and Theatre Arts department in 1986, and was well known for her love of students and strong commitment to multiculturalism, both in the classroom and in her productions. She directed many touring and mainstage productions for young and intergenerational audiences including: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and The Prince, The Wolf, and The Firebird. Smith-Meyer began writing her own original plays and adaptations which included both touring productions--Home Free!, A Comedy of Manners, and Timely Tales of Bullies and Other Beasts--and the mainstage production of A Christmas Carol. She mentored young playwrights, worked with at risk children and incarcerated adolescents and during her time at EMU she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in: improvisation, storytelling, directing, drama in education, children’s theatre and the history and theory of developmental drama and theatre. Karen Smith-Meyer died 1 May 2001 from complications from a stroke.

Christine S. Tanner, 2002-Present. Tanner completed her PhD in Theatre & Cinematic Arts at Bringham Young University in 1985 and came to the faculty of EMU with nearly two decades of experience working as a middle school Drama, English, and Choir teacher as well as a theatre artists and administrator. Since joining the EMU faculty in 2002, Tanner has directed a British Panto version of Pinocchio, The Bully Show, Real Friends, Who’s Capable?, launched the “Box Theatre Company” and wrote and directed Walking the Dog. She received academic fellowships both in academic service learning and with the Department of Justice through ISCIF,was the recipient of a New Faculty Research award in 2003, Service to the University Award in 2006, and four time recipient of the Most Valuable Professor award from EMU’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams. While director of the Riverside Arts Project, she created and oversaw a variety of arts events as part of an economic development program for downtown Ypsilanti.

Patricia Moore Zimmer, 1980-Present. Zimmer received her BFA in Theatre from the University of Evansville in 1976, and completed her MFA in Directing from Florida State University in 1979 where she had the opportunity to work with V. Glasgow Koste who was there during a leave from EMU. She has been directing and writing plays for young and intergenerational audiences for more than 30 years and some of her recent and ongoing professional interests include theatre for preschool audiences, professional development for directors, the nature of creativity, religion and the arts, and new play development in Theatre for Young Audiences. She has served as a reader/adjudicator for two national playwriting competitions, the Bonderman Playwriting for Youth National Competition and the American Alliance for Education’s Distinguished Play Award. Zimmer has written and adapted several plays done by the Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young Program including: Ask For the Moon, Arm In Arm, A Wrinkle In Time and Shaking Earth.

Zimmer is a former editor of Stage of the Art (SOTA), a major publication of AATE. She is an active member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education as well as TYA/USA (the U.S. Center for ASSITEJ). She has been invited to direct and teach in South Korea, where she was a guest artist/instructor at the Korean National University of Arts. In Taiwan, she led workshops for the Taipei International Children’s Festival. She is a recipient of EMU’s Josephine Nevins Keal Award and the Provost’s Artistic Recognition Award. She spent a recent sabbatical leave working on a playwriting project rooted in the history of Missouri sharecroppers in the late 1930s. Zimmer was instrumental in bringing the records of the ADTY to the Eastern Michigan University.