Professor and Head of Playwriting James Ijames to Premiere 'Wilderness Generation' with Philadelphia Theatre Company
Wilderness Generation, a new play by playwright, Concentration Head, and Associate Professor James Ijames, will premiere with Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) this April. The production, which runs from April 10 to May 3, will be directed by PTC’s artistic director Taibi Magar. Wilderness Generation is one of three productions in Philadelphia that will constitute a citywide “James Ijames Pass,” which will allow audience members access to all three productions. The other two shows are Good Bones to be presented at the Arden Theatre Company, and The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington at The Wilma Theater.
Inspired by plays like Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Tracy Lett’s August Osage County, and Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, Wilderness Generation takes place over a singular weekend in the Tidewater South when four cousins gather at their grandmother’s house. The home, which is a place of memory and unexamined truth, makes way for old wounds and long-buried secrets to surface, turning conviviality into tension and making confrontation unavoidable. In this play, Ijames explores trauma that exists in the shadow of silence, and challenges his viewers, and characters, to imagine a different response to a well-worn dynamic. How do we confront the past and change the present and future?
“James has written something deeply funny and profoundly generous,” said Magar in a statement. “The humor grows out of truth, not punchlines, and the emotional turns are earned. He invites us into a family’s private world and trusts us to sit with both the discomfort and the love that lives there.”
“I’m thrilled to continue premiering my work in Philadelphia. This city has audiences who lean in and are willing to wrestle with new and challenging plays,” said Ijames. “Wilderness Generation is, at its heart, a family drama, and it feels especially meaningful to present it here, surrounded by artists I’ve grown alongside. Many of these collaborators feel like a chosen family, which makes telling this story even more personal.”
James Ijames is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-nominated playwright, director, former actor, and educator. Ijames’s work has been produced by The Public Theater, Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, JACK, The National Black Theatre, and Hudson Valley Shakespeare Theater, among others. Ijames won the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Artist presented by Theatre Philadelphia. His production of Tarell Alvin Mccraney’s The Brothers Size and Gem of The Ocean, with Simpatico Theatre Company and Arden Theatre respectively, both received Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction. Ijames was a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting. Also in 2015, Ijames’ play WHITE won the Terrance McNally Foundation Award for best new play. Ijames’s play FAT HAM won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and was nominated for Best Play at the 2023 Tonys. Ijames was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective. Wilderness Generation marks a return for Ijmaes to Philadelphia. He served as a co-Artistic Director for the 2021-22 season of The Wilma Theatre, and was a member of the cast of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined debut at PTC in 2011.
Tickets for Wilderness Generation can be purchased here.