The Wilma Theater welcomes an esteemed group of speakers on Monday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m. for After the End of History, a panel discussion in conjunction with the theater’s Philadelphia Premiere of the 2008 Tony® nominee for Best Play, Rock ’n’ Roll, by Academy Award®-winner and four-time Tony Award®-winner Tom Stoppard. Directed by Blanka Zizka, the production marks the opening of the theater’s 30th anniversary season.
At the end of Rock ’n’ Roll, the Iron Curtain has fallen, and “the end of history” proclaimed. Nearly twenty years later, on the brink of the Presidential Election, The Wilma Theater brings together a panel of distinguished writers and thinkers to examine how world affairs, in Europe and the rest of the world, have changed and what lies ahead. Moderated by The Philadelphia Inquirer’s noted critic Carlin Romano, After the End of History includes political scientist Benjamin R. Barber (Jihad vs. McWorld), Trudy Rubin, who writes the “WorldView” column for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Paul Wilson, translator for former Czech President
Vaclav Havel and former member of the Czech rock band The Plastic People of the Universe.
The Wilma will present a second symposium on Monday, October 27 at 7:30 p.m. – Body and Soul in Rock ’n’ Roll – featuring a renowned panel including philosopher and neuroscientist Owen Flanagan (author of The Problem of the Soul and The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World), Robert Kurzban (director of Penn Laboratory for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology), and Joseph LeDoux (author of Synaptic Self and The Emotional Brain).
Symposia tickets are free for all Rock ’n’ Roll ticket-holders, or $10. Seating is limited. For tickets, call the Box Office at (215) 546-7824 or email tickets@wilmatheater.org. The Wilma Theater is located at 265 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia. For more information, visit
www.wilmatheater.org.About the Panelists
Benjamin R. Barber is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, as well as president and director of the international NGO CivWorld. An internationally renowned political theorist, Dr. Barber brings an abiding concern for democracy and citizenship to issues of politics, culture and education in America and abroad. He consults regularly with political and civic leaders in the United States and around the world. Dr. Barber's 17 books include the international best-seller Jihad vs. McWorld (1995 with a Post 9/11 Edition in 2001, translated into 20 languages) and Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, published by W.W. Norton & Co. in March, 2007. His honors include a knighthood (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) from the French Government (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy of Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). Dr. Barber writes frequently for Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and many other scholarly and popular publications in America and Europe.
Trudy Rubin’s Worldview column runs in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesdays and Sundays. In the past five years she has visited Iraq nine times and has also written from Iran, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, China, and South Korea. She is the author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, a book of her columns from 2002-2004. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal Prize for international reporting. Ms. Rubin also experienced the reforms of the “Prague Spring” at first hand, leaving Czechoslovakia shortly before the Soviet invasion.
Paul Wilson is a freelance writer, editor, radio producer, and translator. He spent ten years in Czechoslovakia (1967-1977) where he taught English and learned Czech. He was eventually expelled by the Communist government for his association with the dissident movement, particularly for his involvement with the underground music scene as a member of the legendary rock band, The Plastic People of the Universe. On his return to Canada, he was active in promoting the work of dissident writers and musicians during the remaining years of totalitarianism and was distinguished for his translations of Czech writers such as Josef Skvorecky,
Vaclav Havel, Ivan Klima, and Bohumil Hrabal. Wilson has contributed essays, articles and reviews to many North American and European publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and the National Post. As a radio journalist, he has written and produced several major documentary series for CBC Radio, including, The Two Germanies (1986), and, with Gwynne Dyer, a seven-hour series on The Gorbachev Revolution (1989). Wilson has recently translated
Vaclav Havel’s memoir To the Castle and Back, as well as Havel’s newest play, Leaving, which is currently receiving its English-language premiere in London.
Moderator Carlin Romano is the longtime literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Critic-at-Large of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and a former President of the National Book Critics Circle, the nationwide organization of more than 600 literary critics, editors, and scholars. He was one of three finalists, along with
Frank Rich of The New York Times and Joseph Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In his academic life, Romano has taught philosophy at Yale, Yeshiva University, Williams College, Bennington College, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently a Visiting Professor teaching media theory and philosophy.
The Wilma Theater's Symposium Series is supported by The Wallace Foundation Excellence Award grant. The Wallace Foundation Excellence Awards were created to support exemplary arts organizations to pioneer effective practices to engage more people in high-value arts activities.
The Wilma will continue its 30th Anniversary celebration with the U.S. Premiere of Schmucks by
Roy Smiles, directed by
Jiri Zizka (December 3, 2008 – January 4, 2009), the Philadelphia Premiere of Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau, directed by Blanka Zizka (February 25 – March 29, 2009), and the Philadelphia Premiere of Hysteria by Terry Johnson, directed by
Jiri Zizka (May 13 – June 14, 2009).
The Wilma Theater’s 30th Anniversary Sponsor is Rohm and Haas. Daniel Berger is Honorary Producer for Rock ’n’ Roll. Sporting Club at the Bellevue is a Season Sponsor, and WHYY is the Wilma’s Media Sponsor.
