Boevers has produced, directed, taught, performed and written for Apple Tree Theatre since its founding in 1983. During her tenure Apple Tree Theatre garnered 112 Jeff nominations and 28 Jeff Awards for excellence in Chicago area theatre. Further, she founded the Eileen Boevers' Performing Arts Workshop in 1970, where, employing Chicago's top theatre artists as teachers, she trained and developed a generation of theatre artists.

She also founded the Traveling Troupe out of the Workshop, which has performed and traveled extensively and promoted Chicago as a center for producing new artists. She also started Theatre for Young Audiences, which presents stage adaptations of literature directly for state-mandated school curricula, with professional productions mounted across the Chicago area. She has been recognized by the Chicago Tribune arts and entertainment editors as "Chicagoan of the Year," by the Lake and McHenry County YWCA as a "Woman of Achievement," by the National Council of Jewish Women as a "Woman of Influence," and has received the Mayor's Award for the Arts, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award from the Illinois Humanities Council. She was named to the North Shore Walk of Fame.

Her daughter, Jessica, is the Broadway actress seen in the recent revivals of …Forum, Oklahoma! and the original musical In My Life. Jessica is married to actor Matt Bogart.

The 40th Annual Jeff Awards ceremony will be held at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, in Skokie, IL.

For more information visit www.jeffawards.org. For more information about Apple Tree, visit www.appletreetheatre.com.