Longtime director of Oak Brook's First Folio theater dies
"If you're not having fun making theater, you're doing something wrong."
Those words summarized the artistic philosophy of director and actor Alison C. Vesely, a force in suburban theater for more than 20 years, who died at home Friday after a two-year battle with cancer.
Vesely, who co-founded Oak Brook's First Folio Theatre in 1996 with her husband, writer/actor David Rice, was a gracious, good-hearted woman and a consummate theater artist whose greatest professional joy was collaborating with her fellow artists, Rice said.
"She loved collaborating," Rice said."She was not an iron-fisted director who came in with every move decided and every nuance worked in advance."
Her favorite part of the process was rehearsal, he said.
"Midway through a rehearsal (period) she'd come home exhausted but glowing, saying 'I can't believe the discoveries we made tonight,'" said Rice.
The outpouring from members of the suburban and Chicago theater community expressing their respect and their support of her family including daughter, actress Hayley Rice, and son-in-law, Scott Laeton, was immediate. In the weeks before her death, actors, playwrights, designers, directors, critics and Joseph Jefferson Committee members posted by the hundreds on "Alison's Journey," the couple's Facebook page chronicling Vesely's battle with ovarian cancer.
Rice credits his wife with the idea to establish a suburban equity theater that focused on nonmusical works. After reading about efforts to turn Oak Brook's Mayslake Peabody Estate into an arts center, Vesely contacted the representatives and pitched her idea for a resident theater company, Rice said.
"She said, 'If we want this to happen, we have to do it ourselves,'" said Rice, the company's executive director. "She did the legwork, she found donors, she got people excited."
Vesely helmed everything from screwball comedies to psychological thrillers to intense character studies. But her favorite plays to direct were William Shakespeare's dramas. "Richard III" was her favorite, Rice said. Her tautly directed 2007 production for First Folio was exceptional, with memorable performances from ensemble members Kevin McKillip as Richard and Nick Sandys as Bolingbrook.
A Joseph Jefferson Award directing nominee for 2009's affecting "A Moon for the Misbegotten," Vesely worked during her two-year illness. She helmed four shows, including last month's Chicago-area premiere of "Dr. Seward's Dracula" by Joseph Zettelmaier. Vesely also directed Zettelmaier's "The Gravedigger," which premiered there in 2014.
A graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, Vesely grew up in Clarendon Hills where she lived with Rice. Before First Folio, Vesely served as classics project director for Footsteps Theatre, a company that specialized in all-female productions of William Shakespeare's plays.
"I will always remember her smiling and laughing. In our 35 years of marriage, there was never a day we did not laugh together," said Rice. "She was almost always smiling. She and I both have always felt that's how you get through life. That's how you get over the tough times and how you enjoy the good times."
Visitation will begin at 3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, at Sullivan Funeral Home, 60 S. Grant Ave., Hinsdale. Internment will be private with a public memorial sometime next year. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in Vesely's name to Alison's Fund for Growth at First Folio Theatre, 1717 31st St. Oak Brook, IL 60523.