In the spring of 2013, acclaimed playwright and actor Kristine Thatcher was hoping to get fired. She was working for Alison Vesely, founding artistic director of Oak Brook’s First Folio Theatre. Thatcher had been absent from the stage for five years, and was making her return with First Folio’s “Underneath the Lintel,” a one-woman show. A cancer survivor 10 months out from her last chemotherapy session, Thatcher decided she couldn’t go on.
“Opening night, I couldn’t do it. Completely chickened out and refused to go on,” recalls Thatcher. “I’d had my understudy go on during previews, and now we were into the regular run and I was still too terrified to go on. I kept waiting for Alison to fire me. I mean, she had to, right? It was one-woman show, I was the woman, and I was refusing to do it. But she kept not firing me. I no longer believed in myself, but Alison did.”
Vesely postponed the opening and Thatcher went on roughly a week later. The show was a hit commercially and critically. “Because of Alison’s belief in me, I got my belief in myself back,” Thatcher says, “That’s the impact she had on people.”
Alison Vesely’s death on Nov. 25 shook the theater world. At 59, her two-year battle with ovarian cancer had been documented on the inspiring “Alison’s Journey,” http://bit.ly/2gvZKsH, a Facebook chronicle penned with wit, grace, compassion and honesty by her husband of 35 years, David Rice.
The week before Thanksgiving, the couple went to the hospital. Vesely had also been diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, and the symptoms were growing more problematic. Her doctors did some tests. The results were staggering: What they’d thought was Bell’s Palsy was actually brain tumors. The cancer had spread with astonishing speed, and even with the most invasive, rigorous intervention, doctors didn’t believe Vesely would gain much time.
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Vesely went into hospice care at home. Before she passed away at her long-time Clarendon Hills residence, she lined up directors for the First Folio shows she’d been planning on helming. The conversation turned from theater to politics.
“At one point I turned to her and said ‘Damn you. You’re going to make me get through four years of Trump all alone, aren’t you?’ “Rice recalled in a Facebook post. “She laughed and said, ‘To hell with that. I’m outta here.’ And we both laughed for a long time. Maybe longer than it deserved. But it sure felt good.”
Vesely was unquestionably a trailblazer. As a director, she forged a place for herself in a field where women account for less than a quarter of the workforce. She and Rice created the first — and so far only — far west suburban Equity theater not devoted to musicals. Vesely’s reputation as a fierce protector of actors and nurturer of talent sparked hundreds of posts on social media following news of her death.
Vesely and Rice started First Folio in 1996, taking up residence at Oak Brook’s Mayslake Estate. The pastoral grounds were ideal for outdoor shows, and they opened with an under-the-stars production of “The Tempest” in the summer of 1997. Over the years, they expanded to a year-round schedule, staging everything from comedies to psychological thrillers to classic dramas in Mayslake’s gothic Peabody Estate mansion.
More hesitant artists would have launched with a modest, non-union shop. Not Vesely and Rice. They built a huge custom-stage for “The Tempest” and hired a cast of close to 20.
“They came out of the gate with union contracts, huge casts and challenging shows,” says actor Tom Mula
Vesely was fearless in other respects as well, recalls actor Christian Gray. Before Gray wracked up 21-plus credits in First Folio shows, he and Vesely met in Chicago when both were acting in a swashbuckling period drama.
“We’d been playing fast and loose with the fight choreography, and I ended up getting stabbed for real,” recalls Gray. “I exited, bleeding, little pieces of metal sticking out. I still have a small scar.”
“Alison was like a lion,” he continues. “She made it her business to give the director and the fight captain quite the earful. Things got shipshape real fast after that. And I was like, ‘I like this woman. I like her a lot.'”
Set/costume designer Angela Weber Miller had a similar reaction after answering a classified ad in 2005. First Folio was looking for a designer for “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”
“I had two very small children — then 3 and 5 – and the 3-year-old had just been diagnosed with autism. So I was really down in the trenches with the parenting,” Weber says. “Alison got it. She knew that for me, work was about finding a creative relationship that would also allow me to raise my kids. It was a completely professional environment, but also one where I could be there for my family. She allowed me to bring my best self.”
Actor Joe Foust describes the community at First Folio as “the island of really talented misfit toys.”
“She had vision, but she also was always interested in what everyone else brought to the table,” says Foust. “She was in charge, but she wanted to hear what you had to say.”
“Rehearsals there are like a bunch of friends getting together to play games,” says actor/playwright Paul Slade-Smith. “It’s all totally professional, but it’s also warm and incredibly respectful.”
Still, when Slade-Smith’s raucous, unabashedly low-brow comedy “Unnecessary Farce” had its Illinois premiere at First Folio, he was taken aback by Vesely’s approach.
“She asked me who I wanted in the cast, and I told her who I’d written roles for. And she said, ‘OK then, that’s who we’ll get,'” Slave-Smith says.
“Alison and I were adamant on two things,” says Rice. “We wanted the best talent we could get and we wanted people who were nice to work with. We knew we weren’t going to get rich. So we decided we better make it fun. And maybe we’ll miss out on some great talents, but we’re not hiring anyone who isn’t nice.”
Vesely is survived by her sister Sharon Gilbert, her husband of 35 years, David Rice, and their daughter Hayley Rice, also a part of the First Folio family as an actor and director. A memorial event is being planned for Vesely in February.
First Folio’s 2016/1777 season continues with “Captain Blood,” opening Jan. 25. Donations may be made to the Alison Fund for Growth at First Folio Theatre. For more information, go to www.firstfolio.org.