Wilma co-founder Zizka makes her return to direct “Archduke”

The assassination shocked the world As the Archduke of Austria and presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was chauffeured through Sarajevo in an open car on June a young Bosnian Serb candidate shot and killed him and his wife We already know the horrific end of that assassination story million slaughtered over four years during the class of World War I one of the the majority brutal conflicts in history But what if the end was still a question When we go to theater we expect plays to have an ending but it won t work that way in Wilma Theater s upcoming production of Archduke the first play directed by Wilma s co-founder Blanka Zizka since she retired four years ago There s a struggle and we don t tell in the play how it ends Zizka noted Interestingly the original script of Archduke by playwright Rajiv Joseph famous for his Broadway hit Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo ended where history did with the assassination that sparked World War I But Zizka who stated she loves Joseph s work and finds it thrilling desired a different less-definitive ending It was anticlimactic because we know the outcome she reported The Wilma s Founding Artistic Director Blanka Zizka returns to direct her first show on the theater s stage since Courtesy of the Wilma Theater So before she retired in she reached out to the playwright suggesting a change Last September he sent me his new draft and the changes he made were fantastic she mentioned Wilma s trio of co-artistic directors also loved them and decided to slate Archduke for this season Do playwrights like those kinds of suggestions Zizka says yes I have these kind of conversations with playwrights all the time she mentioned Playwrights are more collaborative than people think They want their play to be the best It s not about ego It s what is the best for the play Besides Joseph and Zizka already had a relationship In she directed his play Describe the Night a political thriller about the origins of Vladmir Putin s power It was one of the last plays she directed before she retired Company of assassins Archduke focuses on a group of assassins all young and impressionable who have been persuaded to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand and restore order and justice to the once-mighty nation of Serbia In Zizka disclosed Serbia lost its identity subsumed into the Ottoman Empire But through the centuries Serbs dreamed of regaining power and influence By the s as the Ottoman Empire s influence was waning both the Serbian cabinet and a secret Serbian society saw a chance for a change Let s make Serbia great again was the goal Zizka reported If that phrase with a little editing sounds familiar it will help the play resonate with the audience I think when Rajiv writes about history he s not writing about history she stated He s writing about the present by putting a mirror in a historical moment Archduke is talking through the history about what we are now experiencing with Christian nationalism she declared with its brutality misogyny creating false enemies and creating grievances and personal insults or hurt that need to be punished and revenged The brainwashing of these boys is what we are experiencing in our country now disclosed Zizka who defected from Czechoslovakia in with her husband and Wilma co-founder Jiri Zizka now deceased Blanka and her husband Jiri Zizka established the Wilma in after emigrating from Czechoslovakia Courtesy of the Wilma Theater We had no money we had just a suitcase and a little baby she recounted Inquirer staffer Peter Dobrin in an interview when she retired in a year after designing a new Wilma leadership structure of three co-artistic directors and a managing director In the intervening years she s been restoring a farm in the Catskills taking care of her grandchild riding her bicycle and teaching stage design at Yale University Besides being tapped as a consultant she keeps close tabs on the HotHouse Acting Company she founded to develop acting talent and an in-house crew of pros for Wilma productions Each of them has grown in an incredible way as actors and directors and writers When I go to see them on other stages and see how good they are it makes me feel very good she stated On April when Zizka stepped back on Wilma s stage as a director for the first Archduke rehearsal at the theater she experienced an emotional moment It was suddenly a realization that I had not been here for five years she mentioned Oh my God five years It was a little bit strange for the moment After the first moment it was just five actors and our production staff It was about the work not about how I feel FYI Archduke Wilma Theater April -May S Broad St Pay what you can for preview tickets on April and The post Wilma co-founder Zizka makes her return to direct Archduke appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY