Dilaria’s Ella Stiller Wants More Art For And About Cool, Young Women

Last year, after graduating from Juilliard, Ella Stiller was contemplating the path forward for her career. “Theater is my first love,” she told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show. “I always want to do theater. But the question is, is there theater for women my age right now?”

As Stiller explained, she’d love to do Chekhov and Shakespeare—when she’s older. But theater for women—and “amazing, cool female art” more broadly—is what she’s drawn to currently.

Dilaria, Julia Randall’s darkly comic new play having its world premiere off-Broadway, fits the bill. In the play, Dilaria (Stiller) observes the outpouring of social-media love and attention for a tragically deceased college classmate—and starts to get weird ideas in her head.

“This is what I mean when I'm like, ‘I want to be doing women-centered work and cool, feminist, edgy stuff,’” said Stiller.

In the full interview below, Stiller talked more about the play, her time at Juilliard, being part of an acting dynasty (she is the daughter of Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor and the granddaughter of the late great Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller), and her Broadway.com fangirl status.