Oak Brook's First Folio Theatre ends year with $10,000 grant

The year concludes on a high note for Oak Brook's First Folio Theatre, which recently received a $10,000 grant from the DuPage Community Foundation to expand its education programs.

Since its founding in 1996, First Folio has made education a major part of its mission. To that end, the company has brought its touring shows to more than 125,000 students throughout the state. The money will help underwrite a new director of educational outreach.

For more than two decades, the Wheaton-based DuPage Community Foundation has awarded grants to not-for-profit organizations in the fields of arts and culture, education, environmental affairs, health and human services. Since its 1986 inception, the foundation has awarded $9.8 million.

The grant comes on the heels of the company's recent artistic success. Nominated for three 2009 Joseph Jefferson Awards for theatrical excellence for its production of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten," First Folio's Larry Neumann Jr. won a Jeff Award for lead actor at the October ceremony. Neumann shared the Award with "CSI's" William L. Petersen, who starred in Victory Gardens' "Blackbird."

First Folio's season continues with "Jeeves in Bloom," adapted from P.G. Wodehouse's stories about the lovably hapless aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his unflappable butler Jeeves. Alison C. Vesely directs the production which reunites the perfectly pitched duo of Christian Gray and Jim Nance, who played Bertie and Jeeves in First Folio's 2008 hit, "Jeeves Intervenes."

Previews begin Jan. 27 at the Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st St., Oak Brook. (630) 986-8067.