Artistic Leadership
Rick Dildine is a director and producer. In 2024, he was named the Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Children’s Theatre Company, the largest theater in North America devoted to multi-generational audiences.
Before joining CTC, Dildine was the Artistic Director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Dildine oversaw all artistic programming and set the creative vision for ASF, one of the largest Shakespeare festivals in the country. In 2018, he launched ASF's most significant commissioning endeavor to date with the "State of the South" tour and New Southern Canon Project. Playwrights he commissioned include Pulitzer and Tony Award-winner Robert Schenkkan, the most produced playwright in America, Lauren Gunderson, Whiting Award winner Donnetta Lavinia Grays, and Broadway playwright Mansa Ra. The resulting 22-play canon will represent the largest body of work about the South in decades.
Since joining ASF, Dildine reinstated the repertory model, which nearly doubled the subscription base (and added a significant number of new subscribers); launched a training program for early career theatre artists; and established partnerships with the Montgomery Public Schools (90% BIPOC students), Alabama State University (HBCU), and the Equal Justice Initiative. In 2018, the late Congressman John Lewis invited ASF to perform at the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC, and in 2020 Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Lewis led a delegation of 100+ Members of Congress to Montgomery to celebrate the work with young people. Audiences of color have grown over 40%. For his efforts to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in American theatre, Dildine was awarded the "Stand Out Award" from the Society of Directors & Choreographers in 2019. This wave of success has inspired the Board of Directors to launch a $30 million endowment campaign and the State of Alabama to award the theater $5 million towards a $15 million renovation of the facility.
His directing credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, The Tempest, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, Alabama Story, The Sound of Music, Every Brilliant Thing, Steel Magnolias, Little Shop of Horrors, and Cabaret. Upcoming projects include the world premiere musical Fall of '94 (starring Tony Award winner Alice Ripley) and the world premiere of Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder's Zelda in the Backyard. He was a finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award in 2019.
Before ASF, he served as the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis. Under his leadership, Festival attendance grew 55% and revenue grew 38%. The organization received numerous awards, including the Arts Organization of the Year from the Missouri Arts Council, the Exemplary Community Achievement Award from the Missouri Humanities Council, and the prestigious Excellence in the Arts Award from the Arts & Education Council of Greater St. Louis. Dildine was named 2014 "Theatre Artist of the Year" by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "40 Under 40" by the St. Louis Business Journal and recognized on the city's Power List of "100 People Who Are Reshaping the City." He won the 2017 St. Louis Theatre Award for Best Director for his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named him "Best Director" for 2016-17. Dildine, recognized as a leader in community engagement, began the company's public arts programs when he created the highly innovative "Shakespeare in the Streets" and nationally replicated "SHAKE 38." Both programs have been featured in American Theatre Magazine as national models in community development using the performing arts. He initiated the Festival's new works commissioning process, which has premiered works with the Grammy Award-winning Saint Louis Symphony and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.
Dildine has held leadership positions at About Face Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Stephen Foster Theatre (KY), and Brown University/Trinity Rep New Plays Festival under the direction of Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel. He has traveled on TCG international trips to China and Cuba and served on numerous grant panels, including the National Endowment for the Arts. He serves on the Board of Directors for Child Protect and on the National Advisory Board for the Recovery Project.
Passionate about arts education, he has taught or served on staff for Brown University, Clark University, and Webster University. At Webster, he served as Director of the MFA Arts Management & Leadership program and Adjunct Professor within its BFA Performance program. He is an alumnus and instructor of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival and is one of the national judges for the Irene Ryan Acting Award.
Dildine is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University and Brown University/Trinity Rep with an MFA in Acting and is a proud member of AEA and SDC. Rick grew up in Wynne, Arkansas. He is represented by Charles Koppelman.