About Face Theatre 07/08 Season

• Staff
• Board of Directors
• Artistic Associates

Staff

• Bonnie Metzgar - Artistic Director
• Rick Dildine - Managing Director
• Eric Rosen - Co-Founder
• Kyle Hall - Co-Founder
• Paula Gilovich - Education Programs Director
• Mollie Alexander Speer - Development and Marketing Director
• Jane Beachy - Marketing Coordinator
• Greta Honold - Membership and Development Associate
• Emily Tinawi - Institutional Giving Coordinator

BONNIE METZGAR Artistic Director back to top

Bonnie Metzgar is an award-winning producer, director, playwright, and dramaturg. Before joining About Face, she was a professor and director of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University. In addition to teaching, Metzgar also served as Artistic Director of Brown's New Plays Festival for three years with Paula Vogel.

Most notable is Metzgar's involvement as co-creator and producer of the 365 Festival--a national festival based on 365 Days/365 Plays, a yearlong play cycle written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan Lori Parks. Metzgar was the artistic leader for this landmark international event, a shared global premiere by hundreds of theaters, universities and art spaces throughout the U.S. and abroad. Time Magazine named the 365 Festival one of its top ten theater events in 2006.

Also, from 2004 to 2007, Metzgar was Associate Artistic Director of Curious Theatre Company in Denver, where she curated new works and directed for the mainstage. Curious Theatre's War Anthology, for which Bonnie was lead writer, director, and curator, won Colorado Theatre Guild's 2006 Henry Award for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Ensemble. The Denver Post named Metzgar its 2006 Colorado Theater Person of the Year. During this time, Metzgar was also a literary committee member of the National New Play Network.

From 1995 to 2003, she served as Associate Producer at the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival under George C. Wolfe, where she oversaw a wide range of works including several Broadway transfers including Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk and Elaine Stritch: At Liberty. The Public is an off-Broadway institution with five theaters, including free Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

As founding producer of Joe's Pub from 1998 to 2001, Metzgar was the creator of a now world-famous performance venue. Her responsibilities included providing creative vision for all aspects of the new venue--programming, staffing, marketing strategy, identity and designing of the performance space; programming entertainment for the seven-nights-per-week cabaret/nightclub space; working with restaurant partners; and overseeing all show-related operations. Metzgar received her B.A. from Brown in 1986. Her thesis advisor was Paula Vogel. She was an M.F.A. candidate in playwriting in the theater department at the University of Iowa in 1987-88.

RICK DILDINE Managing Director back to top

Rick Dildine is a producer, director and actor. Since 2006 he has been the Producer of the annual Brown UniversitylTrinity Rep New Plays Festival and Playwriting coordinator for the graduate playwriting program at Brown University, all under the leadership of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel and Bonnie Metzgar. He has also been the Artistic Director of the 50-year old Stephen Foster Theater in Kentucky for the past four years. His producing credits include What Once We Felt; punkplay; House of Gold; Common Decency; Inked Baby; GrandMotherland; Bad Money; The Fishbone Fables; Our Pageant of Progress; A Night of Durang; A Table & Two Chairs: A Night of Ives; The SantaLand Diaries; and The Memphis Music Showcase at the Orpheum Theatre featuring FOX's American Idols, where he assisted the Tony Award-winning producer Pat Halloran (Thoroughly Modern Millie). He also produced at the Tony Award-winning Trinity Repertory Company, the Orpheum Theater in Memphis and spent two seasons as a member of the acting company at the Warehouse Theatre in South Carolina. In addition, he served as the Associate Artistic Director and Production Manager at the Foster Theater. His directing credits include Show Boat, Grease, Big River, The Sound of Music, Annie, Smokey Joe's Cafe, Tartuffe, and The Misanthrope. In 2001 he was the recipient of the National Directing Fellowship from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

KYLE HALL Co-Founder back to top

Kyle wrote and directed the award-winning productions of A Home at the End of the World, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, and The Terrible Girls, based on the novel by Rebecca Brown. He also directed the About Face revivals of The Boys in the Band and Cloud 9. As an actor Kyle has appeared in the About Face productions of bash (2001 After Dark Award for Best Actor), Dream Boy (Joseph Jefferson nomination for Best Ensemble), In the Heart of America (After Dark Award for Best Ensemble), and Eleven Rooms of Proust. Regional acting credits include Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of The Odyssey at The Goodman Theatre, The McCarter Theatre and Seattle Repertory, and Frank Galati's productions of Everyman and Valparaiso at Steppenwolf. He is the co-author of Theatre BAM's long-running hit musical Schoolhouse Rock Live! and About Face's feelings and By the Power Invested. Kyle holds an M.A. in performance studies from Northwestern University and is recently appeared on and off-Broadway in Metamorphoses.

ERIC ROSEN Co-Founder back to top

Eric is co-founder of About Face Theatre. Original works for About Face include the musical Winesburg, Ohio (Jeff Award, Best New Work and nomination, Best Musical, also seen at the NAMT Festival in New York and the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia), Dream Boy (Jeff Award, Best Production, with many regional productions), Dancer from the Dance, Whitman, Undone, and The Gift, along with Words on Fire and the original Winesburg at Steppenwolf and concept and direction of Adam Guettel's Myths and Hymns at the Prince Music Theatre (Barrymore nominations, Best Director, Musical). Directing credits include the world premieres of Theater District (Jeff Award, Best New Play) and Fascination (developed at the O'Neill, produced at About Face), the American premiere of Christopher Shinn's Four, the Chicago premieres of Take Me Out and bash, Albee's The Sand Plays at the Goodman, and Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses (associate director, Australia, director of St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Hartford productions.) Major dramaturgy collaborations include Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize winning I am My Own Wife, developed and premiered at About Face, 33 Variations (at Sundance) and One Arm (About Face, Steppenwolf, and Tectonic) all with director Moises Kaufman, and Eleven Rooms of Proust with Mary Zimmerman. Upcoming projects include direction of the About Face world premiere of Zimmerman's M. Proust, and The Trip to Bountiful at Kansas City Rep. Rosen holds a doctorate in performance studies from Northwestern University.

PAULA GILOVICH Education Programs Director back to top

Paula has contributed to The Stranger, Allure, the Northwest Bureau of The New York Times, and other publications nationwide. She is the Co-editor of The Rendezvous Reader and The Stranger's Guide to Seattle. She founded Tenth Avenue East Publishing and published the titles: The World is Yours: The Geography of Hip Hop, Politics Without the State and Pacific Bell. As a playwright and a director, her work has been performed at PAC/Edge, Las Manos Gallery, and Curious Theatre Branch. As an educator, she has taught playwriting, film criticism, journalism and fiction courses at SAIC, Young Chicago Authors and Rezin Orr Campus. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.