Wilma Theater (Philadelphia)

History

The Wilma Theater began in 1973 as the "Wilma Project", founded to produce original material and to develop community-oriented artists. The name "Wilma" refers to an imaginary oppressed sister of Shakespeare created by Virginia Woolf.

Blanka Zizka and Jiri Zizka from Czechoslovakia joined the project in 1979 as artists-in-residence, and later took over artistic leadership, changing the name to the Wilma Theater. The company staged their productions at a variety of different theaters, in particular a 100-seat converted garage on Sansom Street, but opened their current 296-seat theater on S. Broad Street in 1996.

Jiri Zizka left the theater at the end of the 2009–2010 season and died in January 2012.

Awards and honors

, the theater had won 68 Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre and received 238 nominations.

On May 22 2024, it was announced that the Wilma would be the recipient of the 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award, which comes with a $25,000 grant. One of the objects of the award is promoting what often amounts to the incubators of new productions. The Wilma has been noted for this, due in part to its unique organizational structure: it switched from one artistic director, which is standard, to four in early 2020, and then down to three when Blanka Zizka retired in 2021 (leaving James Ijames, Yury Urnov, and Morgan Green), and it also has a permanent troupe of in-house actors, known as the Hothouse. Zizka credited the Hothouse for the award, describing them as the "soul" of the Wilma. WHYY's arts and culture reporter Peter Crimmins has similarly noted that "The Wilma is distinctive not only for the excellence of its original productions, but [also] for its unique approach to running a theater company."

References

Notes

References

1. "History". The Wilma Theater.
2. Marchese, John. (March 1, 2013). "Wilma Theater Artistic Director Blanka Zizka: Philadelphia's Drama Queen".
3. Klein, Michael. (August 19, 2010). "Inqlings: Jiri Zizka ends run at Wilma". [[The Philadelphia Inquirer]].
4. "Jiri Zizka: 1953 - 2012". The Wilma Theater.
5. "The Barrymore Awards".
6. Culwell-Block, Logan. "Philadelphia's Wilma Theater Wins 2024 Regional Tony Award".
7. Shapiro, Howard. (2020-02-18). "One Wilma Theater artistic director becomes four, in a new leadership model".
8. Crimmins, Peter. (2024-05-22). "Philadelphia's Wilma Theater wins a Tony Award".