Shakespeare Festival St. Louis Extends Contract For Exec Director Rick Dildine

Shakespeare Festival St. Louis' Board of Directors announced today the extension of Executive Director Rick Dildine's contract until September 2014. Dildine joined SFSTL in 2009 as the organization's first Executive Director. Since his arrival, Festival attendance has grown more than 30 percent, revenue has increased more than 12 percent, and artistic programming has dramatically expanded with an emphasis on community and educational partnerships.

“We are ecstatic to have Rick Dildine continue his artistic partnership with SFSTL through 2014 as Executive Director," said Jessica Holzer, Chairman of the Board. “His ambitious programming, guidance and artistic vision have had a huge impact on the Festival as well as St. Louis with our diverse community programs and performances. We are very fortunate to have an executive director with such passion, energy, and talent for producing dynamic engaging theater, and we look forward to continuing our creative partnership with Rick in the years to come.”

Both 2010’s Hamlet and 2011’s The Taming of the Shrew broke Festival attendance records with 56,000 and 63,000 people, respectively, and were critically acclaimed for their artistry. The Festival accumulated multiple Kevin Kline Award nominations and won its first Best Play Award for 2010’s Hamlet. In 2010 Shake 38 was launched and annually includes over 200 people performing the entire canon of Shakespeare in 38 hours in 38 different locations throughout St. Louis. Next year’s “Shakespeare in the Streets” will have its inaugural performance in the Gravois Park neighborhood. “Shakespeare in the Streets” is funded in part by PNC Arts Alive and the National Endowment for the Arts. In December 2011 the Missouri Humanities Council awarded the Festival the Exemplary Community Achievement Award.

On the education front, the festival's touring program has doubled from 14 weeks to 30 weeks annually and nearly tripled its revenue with significant support coming from its new anti-bullying program underwritten by Centene. The festival's collaboration with Yale University's MFA Playwriting program led to the festival premiere of Kimberly Rosenstock's new play Every Other Hamlet in the Universe this past season.

In addition, SFSTL was awarded a competitive national grant from EMC Arts and the Regional Arts Commission to prototype a solution to an existing adaptive challenge. In May 2011 the festival's twitter @shakesfeststl was ranked the most influential performing arts group in St. Louis by STLindex.com. Dildine was most recently featured in USA TODAY for the organization's innovative use of social media.

In August 2011 Dildine took over as director of the MFA Arts Management & Leadership program at Webster University. Dildine was selected as one of a dozen US delegates to the International Theatre Institute's World Congress in Xiamen, China, in September 2011. He serves as an Advisory Member on the Board of Directors for the Arts & Education Council of St. Louis. Last spring he oversaw the consolidation of the festival's operations under one roof at its new 7,500 square foot home in the Hill area.

Throughout the year, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis reaches diverse audiences by providing programming in the schools, in the streets and ultimately in the park. Each year, in late spring, the Festival produces a Shakespeare play in Shakespeare Glen in Forest Park, free to the public. The Festival’s next production OTHELLO will perform May 23-June 17, 2012. For more information, call 314.531.9800, or visit our website at www.shakespearefestivalstlouis.org.