Dina Rees Evans was born June 19, 1891 in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from high school in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1908. She received her B.A. degree from the University of South Dakota in 1913. She took her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the State University of Iowa in 1929 and 1932. She received the first doctorate in dramatic art from an American university. Her research for the doctorate involved her instruction of troubled young people in dramatic study.

Evans was an educator and high school principal in South Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, and Montana from 1916 to 1928. She joined the faculty at the State University of Iowa in 1928 as a research assistant in the Department of Speech. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1932 she taught drama at Heights High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

In Ohio, Dr. Evans co-founded Cain Park in 1938, an outdoor theatre in Cleveland Heights. While its director, she mentored many students who became well-known in entertainment, including Norman Felton, Joel Rubin, Hal Holbrook, Dom DeLuise, Robert Freyer and Joel Grey. In 1980 she authored Cain Park Theatre: The Halcyon Years about the amphitheater that was renamed for her in 1989. In addition to her work with Cain Park productions, she became president of the American Educational Theatre Association in 1940 and was the founder of Secondary School Theatre Association (SSTA).

Dr. Evans retired in 1958 and moved to Youngtown, Arizona, where she organized a theatre group and reviewed books for Educational Theatre Journal. She married Harvey Shaw in 1963. Dina Rees Evans died January 20, 1989.