What are readings? Wilma productions start long before they reach the stage. Throughout the year, our Resident Acting Company, HotHouse, reads through a number of plays before we’ve even decided to stage them.
Why host a reading? Our artistic team’s decisions within and around a play are influenced by how the play sounds when read aloud and how the audience reacts. Our subscribers/audiences have asked us to do more readings like these and we are delivering!
$35 per ticket
FRIDAY, FEB 6 at 7PM
by DJ Hills
directed by Adil Mansoor
Horsegirl is a trans woman in her thirties who lives with her father, Cowdaddy, in a small town in Southern Pennsylvania. She falls in love with a do-gooder named Bethel who physically transforms Horsegirl into the person (or thing) they want her to be. Cowdaddy attempts to pull his daughter back to him and Horsegirl must decide for herself what a happy life looks like.
In partnership with:
FRIDAY, APRIL 18
George Orwell’s biting satire, adapted by Nelson Bond
Directed by Eva Steinmetz
Lead Artist – Justin Jain
A staged reading of Nelson Bond’s adaptation of Animal Farm, which will explore thematic and staging concepts that will be used in the Wilma’s spring 2027 Animal Farm Project production. Building on the Wilma Theater’s 1979 staging of Animal Farm, this new production will explore devised theater, text, documentary video, and collections of migrant stories to move beyond Orwell’s allegory and examine oppressive political regimes.
Animal Farm Project has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
FRIDAY, DEC 5 at 7PM
Obie Award-winners Milo Cramer and Morgan Green return with JURY DUTY, a bold theatrical exploration of the voir dire process that fuses real transcripts, personal stories, and striking media design to probe justice, bias, and civic responsibility in a fragile legal system.
In partnership with:
The Voices for Justice Initiative, in partnership with the Committee of Seventy, Ceiba, and Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, aims to strengthen civic engagement and ensure fair representation in the jury system. To learn more and make a donation, please go to https://seventy.org/jury-service-initiative
