Alison C. Vesely | Artistic Director

Alison C. Vesely is the Artistic Director and is Co-Founder (with her husband David Rice) of First Folio Theatre. This season she will direct the world premier of The Castle of Otranto, the Chicago premier of Jeeves In Bloom, and the world premier of Will Rogers: An American Original. Last season she directed A Moon for the Misbegotten (Jeff Nomination -Best Director, Best Production). Previous First Folio directing credits include Design for Living, The Passion of Dracula, Driving Miss Daisy, Jeeves Intervenes, The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe, Angel Street, Private Lives, A Connecticut Yankee... and The Importance of Being Earnest. On the outdoor summer stage Alison has directed Richard III, The Tempest (1997 & 2006), The Taming of the Shrew (1999 & 2005), Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Antigone, As You Like It, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1998). Onstage at First Folio she has been seen as Widow Kitty in The Taming of the Shrew and Amelia in The Comedy of Errors. She also oversees First Folio’s school touring shows, which have played to over 100,000 students in the past fourteen years. Before founding First Folio, Alison was the Classics Project Director for Footsteps Theatre, a women’s theater company specializing in all-female productions of Shakespeare’s plays. Alison worked as the Folio Director and Dramaturge on many productions at Footsteps, including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsommer Night’s Dreame, and Macbeth. She also performed in these productions, earning an After Dark Award for the title role in their production of Macbeth. Additionally, Alison directed Richard III for both Footsteps and Shakespeare’s Herd at the Chicago Cultural Center. Other directing credits include Twelfth Night for Dominican University, as well as  Real Human Dialogue, Riders to the Sea, Kiss Me Kate, and Scrooge at various theaters around Chicagoland.   As an actress, Alison’s work includes Richard II at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Exeter in the Jeff-Recommended Henry VI: Blood of a Nation (Bailiwick). Alison has also served as an adjudicator for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and the Irene Ryan Awards and just completed a three-year term on the Theater Program Grants Panel for the Illinois Arts Council.  She is a proud graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington.