June 16, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
June 16, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia is being honored for its work during the last 5 a long time as an acclaimed and progressive regional theater.
First established in 1973 as a feminist collective known as the Wilma Mission, the Wilma moved into its present 300-seat theater in Middle Metropolis in 1996. It has produced works by Tom Stoppard and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights like James Ijames and Paula Vogel. Its 2021 digital manufacturing of Ijames’s “Fats Ham” was a success, and the play ultimately made its approach to Broadway.
Leigh Goldenberg, the Wilma’s managing director, recalled that she had been on Zoom discussing the theater’s price range final month when the telephone rang. The caller identification mentioned “BROADWAY.” And certainly, (the) Broadway (League) was calling — with excellent news.
“It does really feel like a win,” Yury Urnov, one of many Wilma’s co-artistic administrators, mentioned of the Tony. “We’re doing dangerous, daring, bizarre, loopy theater, and that is encouraging us to maintain going. Danger is tough, and threat is particularly exhausting on this time.”
The Wilma’s management crew, which was anchored for many years by Blanka Zizka, doesn’t simply mount exhibits. The Wilma first debuted its academic applications in 2000, and 16 years later, Zizka helped create a resident performing firm often called the HotHouse, an incubator for creative experimentation.
Zizka retired in 2021 and left in place a management construction through which three creative administrators work with a managing director to collectively oversee the group.
One of many creative administrators, Morgan Inexperienced, is directing “Hilma,” a recent opera exploring the life and work of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint; the world-premiere opera by the playwright Kate Scelsa and the composer Robert M. Johanson is operating this month and closes out the Wilma’s season.
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