Philadelphia's Wilma Theater to Receive 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award

The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, PA has been selected as the 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award winner. The honor, recognizing a regional theater company that has displayed a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theater nationally, is accompanied by a grant of $25,000.

“We are delighted to announce the Wilma Theater as the recipient of the 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award,” said Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing and Jason Laks, interim president of the Broadway League. “The Wilma has made outstanding contributions to the world of theater over the course of 45 years, maintaining an unwavering dedication to contemporary theater and a commitment to the arts that began with its visionary introduction of avant-garde theater to Philadelphia in 1979.”

Established in 1973 as the Wilma Project, the Wilma made a name for itself as a place for avant-garde theater and an environment for local artists to develop their work. One of their first attention-grabbing productions was a 1979 adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, created by Blanka and Jiri Zizka, political refugees from Czechoslovakia. The Zizkas went on to assume artistic leadership of the organization in 1981 and moved the Wilma to a 100-seat theater on Sansom Street. The company was later chosen by the city of Philadelphia for a new 300-seat theater located on Broad and Spruce Streets in Center City, which opened in 1996.

The Wilma has since developed a suite of educational programs, Wilmagination; the Wilma HotHouse Company, an incubator for artistic experimentation; and the Next Chaper Initiative, an iterative leadership model where a cohort of Co-Artistic Directors alongside Managing Director Leigh Goldenberg foster shared governance and artistic vision with diverse voices.

The Wilma's past productions include the 2021 digital world premiere of James Ijames' Fat Ham, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and had a Tony-nominated Broadway run in 2023, and Our Class, Tadeusz Słobodzianek's historical drama which ran earlier this season at Brooklyn Academy of Music and will be remounted in the fall at Classic Stage Company. 

The 77th Annual Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, will air live from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City on June 16 (8:00-11:00 PM, LIVE ET/5:00-8:00 PM, LIVE PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.