After more than 25 years in residence at the historic Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook, First Folio Theatre will sunset when its current show, “And Neither Have I Wings to Fly,” closes on Feb. 26. The theater had previously announced that 2022-23 would be its final season, but the end date was recently moved up and a production of “Twelfth Night,” planned for spring of 2023, has been canceled.
When executive director David Rice and his late wife, Alison C. Vesely, founded First Folio in 1997, they saw several gaps in the Chicago region’s theatrical landscape that the company would help to fill. First, the western suburbs offered audiences few options for professional, non-musical theater. Also, directing opportunities for women were sparse in Chicago’s theater industry.
Since its first production — “The Tempest,” directed by Vesely — First Folio has made significant strides in both areas. From its origins as an outdoor summer Shakespeare theater, it has expanded to produce year-round seasons featuring classic and contemporary works. The company has mounted more than 80 productions, including 14 world premieres, and its work has earned seven Jeff Awards and 44 nominations.
In a recent interview, Rice noted that he and Vesely did not know how long First Folio would last in the early years. “People always ask, ‘What was your overall vision when you started season one?’ And I say, ‘Our overall vision was to get to season two,'” he quipped.
First Folio “has grown because, as we suspected, there is a market for non-musical theater in the western suburbs,” he said.
In the early 2000s, a year-round season became possible when the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County opened the renovated Mayslake Hall — a Tudor Revival-style mansion designed by architect Benjamin Marshall in 1919 — to the public. While continuing its outdoor Shakespeare productions each summer, First Folio moved indoors during the colder months with plays by Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and Eugene O’Neill, as well as new works.
As the theater grew, its leaders remained committed to hiring women in prominent roles, both on and offstage. “One of the reasons that we started First Folio was that back in the ’90s, it was very difficult for women to get directing jobs. Far and away, the vast majority of directing jobs on a professional level in Chicago were going to men,” Rice said.
“And so, in all honesty, one of the reasons we started this theater company was so that Alison would have more opportunity to direct,” he said. “As we developed the company over the years, that expanded to giving lots more opportunities to women throughout the entire theater field.”
More than 80% of First Folio’s productions have been directed by women, and the theater has employed many women as designers of sets, lighting, costumes, sound, projections and more. “That’s one of the things I’m really proud of,” said Rice.
One of Rice and Vesely’s most successful partnerships was the 2006 world premiere of “The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe: A Love Story.” At his wife’s urging, Rice penned the original adaptation — his first attempt at playwriting, which earned him a Jeff nomination. The site-specific piece moved through five rooms of the “supposedly haunted” Mayslake Hall, and the show was so popular that First Folio mounted it a total of six times.
“Alison directed the first three productions, and we had a great time putting it together, the two of us,” Rice recalled. “If anything, she was as much a co-author as she was a director because she helped shape the piece to the needs of the mansion and helped me develop it. So that’s probably my fondest memory — a great production, a very successful production, and a wonderful collaboration with my late wife.”
Rice and Vesely’s daughter, Hayley Rice, has followed in her parents’ footsteps as an actor, director and artistic associate of First Folio. David and Hayley appear together in “And Neither Have I Wings to Fly,” which marks the second time they have played father and daughter onstage.
Growing up in a theatrical family exposed Hayley to the art form even before her parents founded their own company. “Before First Folio, I’d go home after school, do my homework and then go see a show with my parents,” she recalled. “That wasn’t a common experience for a lot of kids. … I don’t think a lot of 13-year-olds are seeing Pinter on a Wednesday night.”
At 15 years old when First Folio’s first production opened, Hayley quickly found that the theater was a great place to spend her summers. “A lot of my favorite memories of my teenage years were actually those summers there, where these 20-somethings (actors) from the city were nice enough to take me under their wing and not just boot me to the curb,” she said.
Having acted in many First Folio productions since then, Hayley shared how meaningful it is to appear with her father in the theater’s final show — not only for them but for their longtime audience members. “Our family has been so transparent in so much of the First Folio experience that a lot of our regulars knew my mother, know my father, know me — not just onstage, but being out in the lobby, greeting them,” she said. “So, I think having that kind of family experience is a really nice capstone to the experience our audiences have had over the years.”
The loyalty of First Folio patrons was evident when I saw the production last Saturday; I heard one person remark that she had been attending for 20 years and was sad to see the company close. A fitting swan song, “And Neither Have I Wings to Fly” is a melancholy family drama set in rural Ireland during the 1950s. As Hayley summed it up during our conversation, the show is about “transition and change and the end of an era.”
The play takes place in the Donnelly home during the week between the mother’s funeral and the wedding of the younger daughter, Kathleen (Jennifer Mohr). David Rice plays the widowed father, Peter, and Hayley Rice is the older daughter, Eveline. After nursing her sick mother for three years, the long-suffering Eveline feels torn between familial duty and her dream of studying literature. Sensitively directed by artistic associate Heather Chrisler, the show examines the deep hurt that family members can inflict upon each other but also offers glimmers of hope and healing.
Although he described it as “a very sad show about a troubled family,” David Rice noted that such a story can be cathartic to watch — even joyful, if not in the usual sense. And ultimately, joy is the feeling that he hopes will be First Folio’s legacy.
“What I would like to be remembered for is for bringing joy to our patrons and to our actors and directors and designers,” he said. “I hope everybody walks away thinking to themselves, ‘That was a really great experience that I had there.'”
“And Neither Have I Wings to Fly” runs through Feb. 26 at First Folio Theatre, 1717 31st St., Oak Brook. Tickets are available at firstfolio.org and 630-986-8067.
Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.
