March 11, 2025
Provided image/Wilma Theater
The Wilma Theater was selected for a program to expand its streaming options. The venue started recording shows to view online in 2021.
When the Wilma Theater began streaming shows in 2021, Managing Director Leigh Goldenberg said it brought up questions like how to maintain a performance's integrity in a digital format and what it meant for audience interaction. While those self-examinations are still relevant, she's also learned just how much the internet can extend the life of a performance.
"In the nonprofit theater, you do something for a few weeks and it goes away and then you bring in the next piece," Goldenberg said. "It's not like Broadway, where something runs forever or moves on to tour. So how do we keep this work alive? Digital feels like a really fantastic way to do that."
The South Broad Street venue was selected for the Bloomberg Philanthropies' Digital Accelerator Program, a group of 200 organizations looking to use technology to expand their online offerings. Goldenberg said she plans to look into new options for the distribution of the digital shows and find the best way to share the work with audiences.
The Wilma first dabbled in digital theater during the COVID-19 pandemic, producing its 2021-2022 season entirely digitally, including the premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Fat Ham" by James Ijames. The next season, the theater continued the practice, using multiple cameras and adding captions and audio descriptions. In December 2023, it launched a digital subscription option for all four of its shows that season. Currently, streaming makes up about 10% of the Tony Award-winning theater's ticket sales.
While productions were filmed outdoors with only the actors during the pandemic, the shows are now shot in front of a live audience at the Wilma to get closer to the feeling of being at the venue. They've also opted to film later in the runs, as performances can change based on the audience's reactions.
"There certainly are limitations on how we shoot," Goldenberg said. "There's not close-ups where you're feeling like you're over the shoulder of one of the actors, like we might have done in those fully digital productions, but we just think that the live-ness of those performances feels great."
In 2023, the Knight Foundation granted the theater a three-year, $925,000 grant for online productions. The following year, the Wilma used the funds to launch the Digital Theater Lab, a forthcoming physical space that will enable staff to create educational offerings, digital artwork for shows and more.
The recordings allow people who might have been unavailable for the initial run to watch a performance a few weeks later, Goldenberg said, as they typically stay live a few weeks after a play closes. The Wilma can't keep the shows up permanently due to union limitations and distribution agreements with playwrights, but it does mean they could be re-released in the future.
Goldenberg said the program improves accessibility, making shows available to people who are too far away to come in-person or require accommodations that are more easily met online, like closed captioning. Plus, there are some showgoers who want to watch the performance again later online, she added.
"I'm very curious about this give and take between digital and in person," Goldenberg said. "We had someone that watched a production online and then traveled from across the country to be able to train with our artists in one of our acting intensives. So how does someone learning about the Wilma in the digital format bring them to Philadelphia? How does someone who stumbles upon our work, or maybe they moved away, stay connected to us? I just think there's a lot of dialogue that can be happening there."
A version of "The Half-God of Rainfall" by Inua Ellams is available through March 30. Upcoming shows "Archduke" by Rajiv Joseph and "A Summer Day" by Jon Fosse will also be streamed.
