Elizabeth Sterling Haynes (December 7, 1897 – April 26, 1957) was an Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 theatre activist.

Born in Seaham

Seaham

Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham, situated south of Sunderland and east of Durham. It has a small parish church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century Anglo Saxon nave resembling the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of...

, County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1897, her family emigrated to Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1905. As a young woman, she studied at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

. In 1921, she married Nelson Willard Haynes, a dentist, and they moved to Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, where she soon established herself as a director, actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and teacher. In 1928, she helped organize the Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 Drama League (which became a model for the Dominion Drama Festival).

In 1933, she became provincial drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 specialist at the Department of Extension of the University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

, and it was from this post that she began to recreate much of Alberta's theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 scene. She wrote technical works and broadcast her reviews and lessons on radio. She travelled the province, to school and community groups, coaching them, demonstrating and adjudicating competitions. 1933 was also the year she co-founded the Banff Centre for the Arts. Failing health began to play a role in her life soon after, though she continued to stay as active as physically possible until her death in 1957.

Said Gwen Pharis Ringwood

Gwen Pharis Ringwood

Gwen Pharis Ringwood was a Canadian playwright.-Life:She graduated from the University of Alberta. She worked part time as a secretary for Elizabeth Sterling Haynes, and then working at the Banff Centre for the Arts as registrar...

 of her:

Elizabeth was a force; a creative energy unleashed at a time when creativity was suspect and in a place where creativity was often ignored in the hope that it would go away.

Edmonton's Sterling Awards

Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award

The Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award is a local Edmonton, Alberta award presented annually which honours excellence in theatre...

 are named in her honour.

External links

• Elizabeth Sterling Haynes at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
  
  
• Elizabeth Sterling Haynes at Encyclopedia of Canadian Theatre