The Wilma Theater and The League Of Live Stream Theater Partner To Present Four Worldwide Live Stream Performances

Philadelphia-based theater company The Wilma Theater (265  South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107) will partner with The League of Live Stream  Theater (LOLST) to present four worldwide live-stream performances of My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion by Ukrainian playwright Sasha Denisova.

The global live stream of the world premiere co production is available for $49 (including a $9 service fee) on February 9 at 7 p.m., February 10 at 2 and  8 p.m., and February 11 at 2 p.m. EST. Partnering with LOLST fulfills The Wilma's ongoing efforts to  extend the life and reach of its productions through digital content. 

The League of Live Stream Theater is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing live performances to  audiences around the world via livestream. Launched just this past year, LOLST has streamed the  Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play Between Riverside and Crazy, the critically acclaimed Broadway  production of Jaja's African Hair Braiding, and most recently the world premiere off-Broadway play  Scene Partners, as well as several regional productions. 

Presented as a world premiere co-production between The Wilma and Washington, DC-based Woolly  Mammoth Theatre Company, the play is an irreverently funny and heartfelt look at the current war in  Ukraine told through Denisova's family story. My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion is directed by The  Wilma's Co-Artistic Director Yury Urnov and features a cast of award-winning actors Holly Twyford,  Wilma HotHouse Company member Suli Holum, and fellow Wilma Co-Artistic Director Lindsay Smiling.  The in-person presentation of the play runs from January 30 to February 18, with 20 performances  presented in The Wilma's 300-seat theater.  

The Wilma and Woolly Mammoth collaborated on My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion's world  premiere, presenting the production with the same cast and crew on their respective stages for the  2023-24 season. My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion kicked off Woolly Mammoth's 2023-24 season  and ran from September 11 to October 8. The play was met with rave reviews, hailed by The  Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks as “ingenious” and “a stunning tale of love, loyalty, and  resilience” by Broadway World. After a successful run in D.C., the production's cast and creative team  prepare to continue telling the inspiring story about the resistance of one octogenarian for The Wilma's  audiences.  

My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion centers on Denisova's 82-year-old mama, Olga (Twyford), who  has lived in Kyiv her whole life. When Russia invades Ukraine in 2022, Sasha (Holum) copes with her  fears by imagining her mother in increasingly fantastical situations: strategizing with President  Zelenskyy, meeting with world leaders, taking out Russian drones with jars of pickles, and even debating 

with God. Throughout the play, Sasha reveals layers of her and her mother's relationship, offering a  window into their lives that is simultaneously revealing and endearing. Denisova was inspired by her  online chats with her mother to write this defiantly funny and deeply heartfelt play about her family's  connection and legacy amidst the present-day war and global crisis. In centering herself and her mother  in the play, Denisova provides an emotionally resonant heartbeat to humanize the Ukrainian resistance  for audiences separated from the war by an entire hemisphere. 

“Every day of this criminal and cruel invasion of Ukraine, I feel a desperate need to respond to it,” said  Urnov. “Now, when the focus is shifting away from the region, the need feels even more urgent. The  Washington Post named Denisova as a leading dramatic voice on Putin's tragic war' for a reason - her  play is a treasure both politically and artistically, despite those two rarely walking hand in hand. Through  telling an extremely personal, emotional, and often funny story about her own mom, Denisova grasps  the very nature of Ukrainian resistance. My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion tells facts and gives  hope.” 

Sasha Denisova is a Ukrainian playwright, director, and writer. Born in Kyiv, she makes sharply social,  political theater in which documentary material merges with magical and fantastical. Denisova  graduated from the Philology Department of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv before  subsequently studying and working at various theater companies in Russia. She studied documentary  theater at the Theater Doc company in Moscow, trained at the Royal Court in London, and graduated  from the School of a Theater Leader at the Moscow Art Theatre School. Denisova went on to serve as  Deputy Artistic Director at the Meyerhold Center in Moscow and, in 2012, received Russia's highest  theatre prize, The Golden Mask. 

Immediately after the full-scale war in Ukraine broke out, Denisova fled Moscow for Poland. At the same  time, all her ongoing productions in Russia were shut down. Since then, she has been a leading voice on  the conflict in the global theater community, writing and staging four plays about Russia's invasion. This  includes Six Ribs of Anger at Kommuna Warszawa in Poland, a first reading of My Mom and the Full Scale Invasion at the CCCV Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain, The Hague at the Polish  Theater in Poznan, Poland, Arlekin Players Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, and Sofia's National  Theater in Bulgaria, and Bakhmut.  

The world premiere production of My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion features Washington D.C.  theater legend Holly Twyford as the titular mama, with Wilma HotHouse Company member Suli  Holumn as Sasha. Lindsay Smiling is deceptively credited as “Man” but portrays multiple characters  such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz through costume  changes and advanced A.I. technology. 

Wilma Co-Artistic Director Yury Urnov directs the co-production of My Mama and The Full-Scale  Invasion. Born in Moscow, Russia, Urnov graduated from the Russian Academy of Theater Art in 2000,  and has lived and worked in the United States since 2009. Woolly Mammoth was his first artistic home  in America, joining as company member in 2014 and directed its productions of You for Me for You (2012), Marie Antoinette (2014), and KISS (2016). In addition to serving as Co-Artistic Director at The  Wilma, Urnov also directed the theater's productions of Mr. Burns (2018), Minor Character (2021), and  Twelfth Night (2023). 

Urnov leads a production team featuring Assistant Director Fatima Dyfan, Scenic Designer Misha  Kachman, Associate Scenic Designer Margarita Syrocheva, Costume Designer Ivania Stack, Associate 

Costume Designer Kitt Crescenzo, Lighting Designer Venus Gulbranson, Associate Lighting Designer  Dean Leong, Sound Designer and Composer Michael Kiley, Projection Designer Kelly Colburn, Associate  Projection Designer Dylan Uremovich, Co-Dramaturgs Sonia Fernandez and Kellie Mecleary, Stage  Manager Becky Reed, Rehearsal Assistant Stage Manager Jazzy Davis, Performance Assistant Stage  Manager Miranda. Korieth, and Understudy Casting Chelsea Radigan. The play is translated by Misha  Kachman and adapted by Kellie Mecleary. 

The League of Live Stream Theaters presentation: 

Streaming tickets for My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion are available for $49 (includes a $9 service  fee) and can be purchased at The Wilma website, the LOLST website, or directly at https://stream.lolst.org/my-mama. 

In-person performances at The Wilma: 

Preview performances for My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion are from Tuesday, January 30, through  Thursday, February 1. The production opens with an invite-only performance on Friday, February 2, at 7  p.m. and runs through Sunday, February 18. In-person tickets start at $29 and can be purchased at  www.wilmatheater.org or by calling the Wilma's box office at 215-546-7824. 

The digital-only subscriptions are $80 and provide a stream to each of the 2023-2024 productions.  Patrons who are already digital subscribers to The Wilma's season can purchase discounted tickets to  the LOLST live steam presentations of My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion for $29 (includes a $9  service fee), if purchased prior to February 2. Digital subscribers will receive a special discount code from  The Wilma ahead of the LOLST livestream performances. 

For the in-person options, patrons can purchase a four-show weekday subscription for $108 that  provides four weekday tickets. A four-show weekend subscription is $124. The four-ticket Whenever  subscription – which includes four tickets to be used in any combination throughout the season – is  $148. The Wilma's subscriptions offer theatergoers savings of up to 60% compared to single ticket  purchases. Single tickets to the 2023-24 season start at $24.  

My Mama and The Full-Scale Invasion has an estimated 90-minute runtime with no intermission. The  play contains herbal cigarette smoke, haze, and flashing lights. Single tickets and subscriptions can be  purchased at www.wilmatheater.org or by calling the Wilma's box office at 215-546-7824.  

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