The Wilma Theater Announces Partnership with Philadelphia Orchestra
To Premiere Tom Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favor in Philadelphia

In Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, Stoppard contrasts the circumstances of a political prisoner and mental patient in a Soviet insane asylum, to question the difference, if any, between free will and the freedom to conform. In a chilling, yet funny scenario, the audience learns that the mental patient is in the hospital for hearing an orchestra in his head and he shares a cell with a man who bears his name and is being treated by the same doctor.

"As a refugee from Czechoslovakia, having spent half my life behind the iron curtain, I feel personally invested in this extraordinary play that deals with pressing issues of political oppression behind the same iron curtain," said Zizka. "The play's message and acute observations remain, unfortunately, timeless. In our violent world, suppression of an individual's rights to expression and freedom takes on different forms but remains as hot an issue as today's headlines."

In 1974, Stoppard was invited by Previn to write a work that included an orchestra on stage. In 1976, Stoppard met Soviet dissident Victor Fainberg, one of a group of people arrested during a

peaceful protest of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Pronounced insane, Fainberg spent five years in the Russian prison-hospital system and later wrote about his experiences in the magazine "Index on Censorship."

Fainberg was exiled and worked tirelessly to secure the release of Vladimir Bukovsky, another dissident imprisoned for exposing the abuses of psychiatry in the USSR. Bukovsky was released and sent to the West in 1976. He attended a rehearsal of Every Good Boy Deserves Favor in June of 1977. The play is dedicated to him and Victor Fainberg.

The play premiered at Festival Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Previn. Trevor Nunn directed the production and the included Sir Ian McKellen as Alexander, John Wood as Ivanov, and Patrick Stewart as the doctor.

The Collaborators

Tom Stoppard (playwright) wrote his first play, Enter a Free Man, while working as a journalist in Bristol. He was introduced to American audiences in 1967 with the Broadway hit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which was followed by The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Jumpers, Travesties, Dirty Linen, New-Found-Land, Night and Day and Arcadia. His off-Broadway productions include Enter a Free Man and the double bill of Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth. For television, Stoppard's work includes the highly-acclaimed adaptation of the 1889 British novel by Jerome K. Jerome called Three Men in a Boat, seen on American public television in 1979. Professional Foul, a play he wrote for television, has won awards from BAFTA and the Broadcasting Press Guild. His radio plays include If You're Glad, I'll be Frank, Albert's Bridge (Italia Prize Winner), M is for Moon Among Other Things, The Dissolution of Dominic Boot and Artist Descending a Staircase. Tom Stoppard has written screenplays for the films Despair, The Romantic Englishwoman, The Human Factor, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate and received the Academy Award for his screenplay of Shakespeare In Love. He directed and wrote the screenplay for the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead which won the Prix d'Or at the Venice Film Festival 1990 for Best Film.

André Previn (composer) continues to redefine the possibilities in his extraordinary career, already one of the most distinguished musicians of our time. With the 1998 premiere of his first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire, in San Francisco and its subsequent PBS telecast and Deutsche Grammophon recording, Previn added new luster to his unique position in the world of music. In recent years, his diverse achievements have won him a succession of honors, from Germany's Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit and a Kennedy Center Honor for Lifetime Achievement, to a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Recording and the Grand Prix du Disque for his Streetcar recording. Musical America also named him Musician of the Year. His discography spans more than 50 years of recordings for all of the major labels. His most recent Deutsche Grammophon release includes world premiere recordings of five his own compositions, including Diversions, commissioned by the Mozarteum/Salzburg for the Vienna Philharmonic, and The Giraffes Go To Hamburg, written for soprano Renée Fleming. On commission from Carnegie Hall, Mr. Previn is currently writing a piece for the Emerson String Quartet and Barbara Bonney to be premiered in Spring 2003.

Jiri Zizka (director) became the Artistic Director of the Wilma in 1979 where he has directed over 40 productions including Orwell's Animal Farm, Camus' The Stranger, Brecht's Mother Courage, Capek's The Insect Comedy, Weiss' Marat/Sade, his own adaptation of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Brecht/Weill's The Happy End, Orwell's 1984, (at the Wilma, Kennedy Center and Off-Broadway), Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and a US premiere of Havel's Temptation (a co-production with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival). Mr. Zizka has also directed a feature film of Havel's Largo Desolato, adapted by Tom Stoppard, starring F. Murray Abraham for PBS's "Great Performances." He wrote and directed Inquest of Love, a film for PBS/WHYY, which was nominated for an Emmy Award (Mid-Atlantic) and received the Golden Eagle Award for Excellence. His most recent theater credits include George F. Walker's Love and Anger, Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, Mark Saltzman's The Tin Pan Alley Rag, David Gow's Cherry Docs Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy, Stephen Sondheim's Passion, and most recently Christopher Hampton's Les Liasons Dangerouses..

Founded in 1900, The Philadelphia Orchestra has distinguished itself as one of the leading orchestras in the world through a century of acclaimed performances, historic international tours, and best-selling recordings. Led by Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch since 1993, the Orchestra celebrated its 100th Anniversary through a series of activities surrounding the year 2000, with performances, publications, tours, and broadcasts (including an internationally televised gala Birthday Concert on November 16, 2000). A year later, the Orchestra fulfilled the dream of generations of music-lovers with opening concerts in its new home at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The center's Verizon Hall, designed and built specifically for the ensemble's world-renowned artistry, sets the stage for the Orchestra's next century through state-of-the-art acoustics and amenities. Following ten highly-acclaimed years at the helm, Wolfgang Sawallisch will assume the title of Conductor Laureate in the fall of 2003 when Christoph Eschenbach becomes The Philadelphia Orchestra's seventh Music Director.

The Wilma Theater has grown to national and international prestige in the arts community. Jiri Zizka's staging of George Orwell's 1984 was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and at the Joyce Theater in New York. The Wilma co-produced Vaclav Havel's Temptation at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a PBS broadcast of Largo Desolato, a feature film directed by Jiri Zizka, which was adapted by Tom Stoppard from Vaclav Havel's play. In Philadelphia, Wilma productions have received 26 Barrymore Awards, more than any other theater, including five for the East Coast premiere production of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, which was produced the following year on Broadway by The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Wilma Theater has received high critical acclaim from The New York Times, The New York Post, Time Magazine, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune.

For more information on The Wilma Theater and its programming contact The Wilma Theater Box Office at (215) 546-STAGE or visit us online at www.wilmatheater.org.