May 22, 2024
KYW Newsradio
The Wilma is the first theater in Pennsylvania to win the award since 1976
The Wilma’s leadership team: Co-Artistic Directors Morgan Green, Lindsay Smiling, and Yury Urnov, and Managing Director Leigh Goldenberg. Photo credit The Wilma/En Route Marketing
By Sabrina Boyd-Surka, KYW Newsradio
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — You don’t have to go to New York to see Tony-winning theater — The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia has won this year’s Tony Award for Regional Theatre.
The award goes to a non-Broadway company that has contributed to the growth of theater nationally, according to the American Theatre Critics Association, which recommends a winner to the Tony Awards.
Wilma Managing Director Leigh Goldenberg said the award came as a surprise.
“You don’t know that you’re nominated or that you’re in the running at all,” she said. “They literally just call you out of the blue and tell you that you’re getting the award.”
Goldenberg was in her office with co-Artistic Director Lindsay Smiling when they got the call.
“We just jumped for joy,” Smiling said. “Everybody heard us screaming. … It was a moment I think we’re both going to remember for a long time.”
The Wilma is the first theater in Pennsylvania to win the award since it was introduced in 1976.
Production of Fat Ham at The Wilma Theater. Photo credit Johanna Austin
The American Theatre Critics Association told Goldenberg that it chose The Wilma in part for its digital productions, which began during the pandemic. The Wilma has continued streaming its shows after the live runs end.
“We gained audience members all over the country and the world, frankly, through our digital work, which I think put us on the radar of the Critics Association,” Goldenberg said.
Smiling also attributes the win to their collaborative methods. The theater is run by three co-artistic directors with a resident ensemble of actors, The Wilma HotHouse Company.
“It feels really special, particularly because it is about the whole organization,” he said. “It’s not about one particular show or one performer or director. … It’s really been a lot of voices contributing to the welfare of this theater, and it just feels like such a huge breadth of accomplishment for so many people that made this possible.”
Goldenberg hopes this award will elevate Philadelphia as a theater destination and show local audiences that they don’t have to travel to New York to see great performances.
Production of Minor Character at The Wilma Theater. Photo credit Johanna Austin.
“You make work in your community here in Philadelphia because that’s what feels meaningful, not because you want recognition,” she said. “So it feels really special that people have taken notice.”
The Wilma’s next production is a world premiere contemporary opera, “Hilma,” about early 20th-century queer mystic and artist Hilma af Klint. It opens June 4, and audiences who attend after June 16 — the night of the Tony Awards ceremony — will have a chance to see the shiny golden trophy displayed in the lobby.
