Virginia Glasgow Koste
Virginia Glasgow Koste was born into a family of actors and has spent her life working in the theatre and in education. Koste studied drama and child development at Vassar College (B.A.), and did graduate work at Wayne State University (M.A.), Cornell, Indiana and Northwestern Universities. She studied acting with Stella Adler in New York. One of her greatest talents as an educator has been her ability to engage immediately with young people, who are drawn to her warmth and joyous personality
Her professional acting credits range from the Chicago company of Street Scene to The Lone Ranger. She has taught in Detroit inner city nursery schools and at Albion, Wayne State, Duke and Florida State Universities. A professor and director of Drama/Theatre for the Young at Eastern Michigan University from 1962-1987, she was cited in Creative Drama News for her contribution in developing “one of the most exciting children’s theatre and creative drama curricula in the country.” She has lectured and worked as a guest artist in the United States, Canada and Europe and has performed her play I Remain… J. Austen throughout the United States.
The Children’s Theatre Association of America chose her to participate in the first Wingspread Conference on theatre in education and in the Cleveland Seminar on drama as a way of teaching. She also served as a member of the Executive Committee of the United States Center for ASSITEJ and as a delegate to its original Constitutional Congress in Paris in 1965.
Her awards include: The Michigan Theatre Association’s first award for significant contributions to theatre; the Adahi Award for excellence in teaching drama and theatre; the Indiana Arts Commission/National Endowment for the Arts Master Artist Fellowship for “artistic excellence and achievement”; the 1986 Charlotte B. Chorpenning Award for longstanding excellence in playwriting for children; the AATE 1980 Creative Drama for Human Awareness Award; the 1990 AATE Distinguished Play Award for primary and middle school audiences for The Chicago Gypsies; and the 1995 AATE Honorary Research Award for her significant contributions to the development of theory and research in the field of drama/theatre and education. She served as a member of the Theatre Advisory Board of the Michigan Council for the Arts. Koste is a lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild.
Her published plays, which have been produced through the work, include: The Chicago Gypsies, The Trial of Tom Sawyer, The Medicine Show or How to Succeed in Medicine Without Really Trying, A Little Princess, Alice in Wonder, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, On the Road! To Oz, The Cinderella Syndrome, Scraps! The Ragtime Girl of Oz, White as Snow, Red as Blood, I Remain… J. Austen and The Tolstoy Story Play. Her book, Dramatic Play in Childhood: Rehearsal for Life, explores the nature and workings of dramatic imagination at its roots—in the natural play of childhood. Koste has also been published in numerous journals and has contributed chapters to books.
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