Blanka Zizka

Blanka Zizka (born 1955) is an American theatre director and playwright. She was currently the Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater.

Biography

Zizka defected from Czechoslovakia in 1973 with her partner, Jiri Zizka, and came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The couple joined up with a feminist experimental theater collective called the Wilma Project (as it was then known). By 1981 she and Jiri became co-artistic directors of the Wilma, known for their bold productions of the works of Bertolt Brecht, Eugene Ionesco and Tom Stoppard.^[1] In 1995, Blanka Zizka's Barrymore Award-winning production of Jim Cartwright's ROAD was presented at the International Theater Festival in the Czech Republic, the first American company to be invited. CBS News called the Wilma "one playhouse that has emerged from the shadow of the Great White Way to make history on its own."^[2] Blanka and Jiri set up shop in a former industrial space on Sansom Street, refurbishing it themselves with the help of friends, creating what would become the Adrienne Theater, which for many years was a locus for new theatrical work in Philadelphia. ^[3] The company remained there until 1996 when it moved to its current home on Avenue of the Arts, at the intersection of Broad and Spruce Streets. ^[4]

Blanka became the sole Artistic Director of the Wilma shortly before Jiri's death in 2010. She is currently creating a resident company called Hothouse: an ensemble of actors who train together every month in techniques as disparate as that of Greek director Theodorus Terzopoulos^[5] and Jean-René Toussaint's Primitive Voice.^[6]

References