About Face's Rick Dildine to Shakespeare St. Louis

Shakespeare Festival Saint Louis announced this morning that it's hired Rick Dildine as the company's executive director. Dildine has served for the last 13 months as managing director of Chicago's About Face Theatre; he arrived here last year from Brown University with artistic director Bonnie Metzgar.

Metzgar, who joked in a phone call this morning that St. Louis had "poached my precious Rick," notes that this marks a return to outdoor theater for Dildine, who previously served as artistic director of Bardstown, Kentucky's Stephen Foster Theater. Dildine's not the only staffer Metzgar's losing to the Show-Me State: Development director Mollie Spear has joined the staff of Kansas City Rep, now helmed by About Face founder Eric Rosen.

Earlier this year, About Face's future looked uncertain, as the company postponed the world premiere of Ann Marie Healy's What Once We Felt to focus on an emergency fundraising campaign. At the theater's Flip Flop Pop cabaret event last Monday, Metzgar and Dildine reported the campaign's success, announcing that the theater's back in the black. Longtime LGBT community leader Stevie Ball will join the staff as interim development consultant while the board begins a search for Dildine's replacement. Meanwhile, the company's Chicago XYZ Festival, featuring new works by Adam Bock, Holly Hughes and Patricia Kane, kicks off September 21, and Healy's play will follow in 2010.