directed by blanka zizka
NEWS & NOTES
TOM STOPPARD ON STAGE AT THE WILMA: SYMPOSIUM DECEMBER 4, MODERATED BY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR BLANKA ZIZKA
For Immediate Release: October 19, 1999
Contact: Damian J. Sinclair, 215.893.9456 x107
Philadelphia, PA - October 19 - Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard will take center stage at The Wilma Theater on Saturday, December 4 for a public Symposium. Moderated by Artistic Director Blanka Zizka, who will direct the East Coast premiere of Stoppardís The Invention of Love at the Wilma in February 2000, the Symposium is slated for 11:00 AM. Tickets are priced at $25, with discounts for Wilma Theater subscribers. A limited number of tickets are available at $100, which includes a brunch following the Symposium with Mr. Stoppard, as a benefit for the Wilma.
The Wilma Theater has a longstanding relationship with Tom Stoppard, whose play Arcadia opened the new Wilma Theater space on the Avenue of the Arts in 1996. The Wilma has also presented Mr. Stoppardís plays Travesties and On the Razzle, to great critical and audience acclaim. The Invention of Love, slated as the third play in the Wilmaís 20th Anniversary Season, will play from February 9 though March 12, 2000. Mr. Stoppard has won an Academy Award for his screenplay of Shakespeare in Love and received a nomination for his work on Brazil.
The Invention of Love focuses on the turbulent life of poet and scholar A.E. Housman. As he is ferried across the river Styx upon his death in 1936, Housman reaches into his rich tapestry of memories and re-lives his formative years at Oxford, where he studied with notable classmates Moses Jackson and Oscar Wilde. Equating Hades with the Oxford of Housmanís youth, Stoppard peers into a time when high Victorian morality was under siege from the Aesthetic movement.
Tickets to the Symposium and the play are available at The Wilma Theater box office, 215/546-7824, or online at www.wilmatheater.org.
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