David Rice |Executive Director

David Rice is co-founder (with his wife Alison C. Vesely) of First Folio, where he has produced over 30 shows. As a playwright he specializes in stage adaptations of literary works, including The Castle of Ortanto and The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe (Jeff Award Nomination for New Adaptation in 2007). His adaptation of Dean Monti’s Why Dogs Don’t Talk was chosen for City Lit Theater’s first annual Art of Adaptation Festival. As an actor, he has been seen at First Folio as Boolie in Driving Miss Daisy, Chris the Sly in The Taming of the Shrew, Egeus and Snug in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Aegeon in The Comedy of Errors, Feste in Twelfth Night and Friar Francis in Much Ado About Nothing. David has also appeared as Boolie in Driving Miss Daisy with Charlotte Rae (Briar Street Theatre); George Reed in 1776 (Marriott’s Lincolnshire); Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened... (Kinetic Theatre); and in numerous other plays and musicals, including Follies (Candlelight Dinner Playhouse), Kuni-Leml (Illinois Theatre Center), and Room Service (Bailiwick). David originated the role of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall in Doug Post’s musical version of The Wind in the Willows at the Organic Theater. Die-hard trivia fans might be interested to know that David was a 4-time winner on Jeopardy! David has been a proud member of Actors’ Equity Assn. since 1991.