What did Philly audiences and theaters learn from the 2026 Citywide James Ijames Pass?

The pass offered an unprecedented three-play, three-theater, all-Ijames subscription, complete with discounts and swag. Price-wise, it looked like a good deal, and Akhtar decided to give it a try. She was “so blown away” by the first play, Good Bones at the Arden Theatre Company, that she convinced friends to join her for the next two: The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington at The Wilma Theater and Wilderness Generation at Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC). “I definitely feel like I was hooked after the first play,” says Akhtar. “Right after that, I started buying more theater tickets.”

Akhtar’s response is exactly what the creators of the pass wanted. When the Arden, Wilma, and PTC discovered that they had all included Ijames’s work in their 2025-26 season, they developed a first-of-its-kind joint subscription as a marketing experiment. TKTS and the Philadelphia Visitor’s Bureau served as their shared box office.

Akhtar found all three plays revelatory, but says that her favorite, Wilderness Generation, “literally felt like eavesdropping on people I know and their private conversations.” She marveled at how much talent goes into each production, noting that “It was beautiful to see the set, how much it would change and move with the play.” Especially in the Arden’s Good Bones, “the set itself was like its own costume.”

Topics worth discussing

Teri and Garth Connor, a retired arts educator and environmental scientist respectively, have subscribed to Inis Nua Theatre Company and cherry-picked plays at the Arden and the Wilma in recent years, but had never seen a PTC production. When a promotional email hit their in-boxes, they knew about Ijames and were excited by this unusual option.

“Every play in the pass was a topic that that we all should be discussing,” says Teri. Months later they are still excited to talk about the issues Ijames raises and say they would love another multi-theater package like this. Teri explains that, without the commitment of a subscription, things they want to see often slip through the cracks. Garth adds, “We’ve already noticed that PTC is having Liberation next season, which just won the Pulitzer. I'm interested in seeing that!”

An intergenerational debate

Zakya Hall is a proud sixth-generation North Philadelphia 30-something who works for a legal aid organization. She enjoys theater in Philadelphia and New York City, but not by subscription. Hall looks for rush tickets, holiday deals, and other ways to make plays and musicals affordable, especially because she likes to bring her 16-year-old cousin Malik Abdul-Hakeem, who lives with her. Hall read about the Citywide Pass in Billy Penn, noting that she is “very online,” where she is targeted for theater marketing. She had seen Ijames’s Pulitzer-winning Fat Ham on Broadway and considered him an especially appropriate playwright for the City’s Semiquincentennial year. She was also keen to share Ijames with her young cousin.

Central High School sophomore Abdul-Hakeem went to Good Bones and Miz Martha expecting “a little modern, simple play.” He was happily surprised to find the productions grappling with deep issues like gentrification and slavery. Previously, he had seen mostly musicals and lighter fare at the Academy of Music. Until this Citywide Pass experience, Abdul-Hakeem had the impression that all Philadelphia theater occurred in that one building. Describing his Arden experience, he observed, “Old City has a lot of political and cultural background and being able to see a play about political situations in such a flourishing political area really shocked me.” His aunt reports that, after Good Bones, the two “had a very passionate debate about gentrification that lasted for hours, which I think is what art inspires.”

The thrill of chasing a living playwright

Glenside retirees Barbara and Daniel Traister, a former English professor and rare book librarian, are ardent theater consumers. Having seen Fat Ham, they were so enamored of Ijames that they purchased tickets to Good Bones before the pass even became available, and then bought the other tickets individually.

“While a playwright is alive and producing new works, I think it's fascinating to see multiple plays in one season. You can compare them, you can talk about growth. It intensifies the excitement,” Barbara observes. In a similar vein, West Philly’s Akthar says, “It would have been amazing to see one of these plays, but seeing all three of them and having all the context, being able to compare and contrast—I do feel like each one built on the others.” Akhtar concludes, “We are just so lucky to have this local theater scene that puts so much dedication into this art. I would totally do this again.”

Opening doors, breaking silos

A total of 330 Citywide Passes were sold, according to Andrew Alter, marketing manager at the Philadelphia Visitor Center. Of these, 267 included all three plays and 63 were a two-play pass, which was cleverly introduced after Good Bones to build on early positive momentum. Marketing directors at all three companies are delighted with the results of their experiment.

Rachel Robbins of the Wilma says that Miz Martha was their highest-grossing production of the season to date. “The response to this pass has been more extensive than we ever expected. We had 91 people who were completely new to the Wilma” and more who returned after years away. Mike Hogue at the Arden focuses on the visibility from press coverage that extended beyond Philadelphia. PTC’s Carolina Vargas notes that Wilderness Generation “received an incredibly strong response and ultimately became the best-selling show of the season,” including many first-time PTC attendees. “In many ways, the pass has opened the door for Philly theaters to collaborate and help one another succeed,” she concludes.

Philadelphia theatergoers tend to be tribal, says Mark Wade, a theater professor at Villanova University and independent director (he just co-directed the Wilma’s season closer, The America Play). In other words, there are “Lantern people” and there are “InterAct people”. Wade thinks that using one popular playwright to bring folks into different venues with different artistic sensibilities is “a glorious way to go.” Exposing people to distinctly different theatrical worlds is key to growth.

Can stories transform the world?

Still, everyone interviewed noticed that three productions with powerful African American storylines and all-Black casts (except for Nancy Boykin’s Wilma turn as the titular Miz Martha) played to largely older, white audiences. North Philly’s Hall commented that “the stories … on the stage definitely capture a wide range of experiences and stories that need to be told. I just wish that they were able to be heard by more people.”

“I was really sad to see that I was one of few young people of color at the first play,” Akhtar noted. “By my last play it was more diverse. There were people laughing at niche jokes.” In part, that might be because PTC received a grant to do extensive community outreach for Wilderness Generation, which was a world premiere. Obviously, there’s more work to be done.

Why should we strive to expand and diversify theater audiences? Playwright James Ijames says that we humans organize our lives by the stories we tell ourselves and each other. “I know that people telling stories to each other can, and does, transform the world. They wouldn't be trying so hard to have control over the story if it weren't powerful.”