La Jolla Playhouse has announced several initial projects for its 2022 Without Walls (WOW) Festival. The WOW Festival will take place April 21-24 at Arts District Liberty Station, home of the Playhouse’s 2019 WOW Festival and the Pop-Up WOW event in August 2021.
Like previous WOW Festivals, the 2022 event will feature four action-packed days of theatre, dance and music, with more than 20 productions by acclaimed local, national and international artists occurring simultaneously throughout the weekend. The WOW Festival creates a cultural and artistic hub in the city, where patrons can gather to experience WOW performances, engage in lively discussions about the work, and enjoy the many food and drink options on offer at Liberty Station.
Tickets for WOW Festival productions, ranging from free to $20, will go on sale in March. For more information, visit https://lajollaplayhouse.org/wowfestival2022/.
The appetite for WOW has grown tremendously since the program’s inception in 2011 – from audiences and artists alike – and the Playhouse is expanding the program to offer even more of this exciting, interactive work in the community. Beginning in 2022, the Playhouse will produce the WOW Festival annually, making it a staple of the San Diego events calendar for local, national and international audiences.
As further part of this growth, the Playhouse recently appointed Mia Fiorella to the new position of director of experiences and activations. She will join Playhouse producing associate Amy Ashton in overseeing the Without Walls series.
“Without Walls has truly become part of the core of the Playhouse, and it has been a dream of mine to make the WOW Festival an annual event in San Diego. By moving to a yearly festival, we are taking another step toward making La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego the premier destination for this type of site-inspired, immersive, engaging work,” said Christopher Ashley, the Rich family artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse.
“I’m so pleased to have Mia Fiorella take on this new position, focused on spearheading WOW’s ongoing evolution. Her role, alongside festival producer Amy Ashton, will give us the opportunity to meet the growing demand for these uniquely thrilling offerings.
“This initial line-up for our 2022 outing showcases an extraordinary group of artists from San Diego and around the globe, including such popular past WOW Festival participants as CORPUS, Polyglot and Blindspot Collective. There will be experiences that appeal to patrons of all ages, and it’s a joy to be back at Liberty Station to celebrate our community’s theatrical adventurousness and rich cultural diversity.”
La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls series has become one of San Diego’s most popular and acclaimed performance programs. This signature Playhouse initiative is designed to break the barriers of traditional theatre, offering immersive and site-inspired works that venture beyond the physical confines of the Playhouse facilities.
Over the last 10 years, the Playhouse has been commissioning and presenting this series of immersive, site-inspired and virtual productions throughout the San Diego community, including eight stand-alone productions, 14 Digital WOW pieces, and four WOW Festivals.
Initial projects for the 2022 WOW Festival include:
Ants, from the Australia-based Polyglot Theatre (2019 WOW Festival’s Boats; 2013 WOW Festival’s We Built This City); Ascension, from San Diego Opera; Black Séance, a world premiere from the San Diego-based Blindspot Collective (Playhouse’s 2020/21 Resident Theatre Company; Pop-Up WOW’s when the bubble bursts; Digital WOW’s Walks of Life; 2019 WOW Festival’s Hall Pass); La Bulle, from the Toronto-based CORPUS (2015 WOW Festival’s A Flock of Flyers); The Frontera Project, from the Mexico-based Tijuana Hace Teatro and NYC’s New Feet Productions; Lessons in Temperament, from Canada’s Outside the March; Monuments, from Australia-based artist Craig Walsh; and On Her Shoulders We Stand, from the San Diego-based Tu Yo Theater, plus a devised piece created by students in the San Diego Unified School District’s 2022 Honors Theatre Program.
Additional projects – including works by several Arts District Liberty Station-based arts groups – will be announced shortly, along with performance schedules and COVID protocols.
Fiorella joined the marketing team at La Jolla Playhouse in 2011 and helped launch the very first Without Walls (WOW) show, Susurrus, at the San Diego Botanical Garden, and the inaugural WOW Festival in 2013. She also helped develop and produce several WOW projects, including Accomplice: San Diego, The Car Plays and Binge, as well as several Digital WOW productions.
Additionally, Fiorella worked on marketing such hit Playhouse shows as Come From Away, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Blueprints to Freedom, Junk and Miss You Like Hell, along with all WOW projects. Her passion is bringing audiences and artists together to share stories, cultures and experiences.
She previously worked as the audience development manager at The Old Globe, and in Chicago as a publicist with John Iltis and Cheryl Lewin Associates and as marketing and publicity director for The Noble Fool Theatre and Trinity Irish Dance Company.
Ashton joined La Jolla Playhouse in 2020 as producing associate, where she has produced several projects, including the Digital WOW series and the Pop-Up WOW event last summer. She served for seven seasons as managing director of Colt Coeur Theatre Company, developing and producing eight world premieres, including Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, as well as the East Coast premiere of Eureka Day, by Jonathan Spector.
She produced site-specific and immersive projects, such as Empire Travel Agency, KPOP and Does It Hurt When I Do This? with Woodshed Collective. She previously served as artistic associate at Roundabout Theatre and The Civilians. She also produced the 2015 Prototype Festival production of Kansas City Choir Boy, starring Courtney Love and Todd Almond, and the 2017 NYMF production of The Demise.
