Behind the scenes at the Wilma’s big Tony night

On Sunday afternoon, at New York City’s Arthouse Hotel, Leigh Goldenberg, Morgan Green, and Katherine Kelton were getting their hair, makeup, and accessories ready in a room with sandwiches and champagne.

They had arrived from Philly that weekend, a small delegation picked to represent Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, whose show Fat Ham had been nominated for five awards at the 2023 Tonys.

Fat Ham’s Tony attention marks the first time an independent Philadelphia theater has been nominated, a major achievement for the city’s arts community.

Goldenberg, the Wilma’s managing director and Cheltenham native; Kelton, a lawyer who chairs the Wilma’s board; and coartistic director Green, who directed the filmed premiere of Fat Ham, were crowding in Kelton’s room to ask one another advice on selecting earrings and clutches from a shelf full of options.

On the balcony, Green reflected on Fat Ham’s beginnings. As coartistic director, she had selected the play as part of her season. “I was reading the scripts that the [Wilma] had in these Dropbox folders, and there was a folder that was like, ‘Pass,’ ” said Green, who was looking for a play with a party full of music, dancing, and chaos. “That’s where I found Fat Ham.”

The script promised a joyful, Black queer reinterpretation of Hamlet from Philly playwright James Ijames, one of the theater’s other artistic directors at the time. Hamlet became the soft, sensitive, and sarcastic Juicy. Set at a backyard barbecue in the South, the comedy pivots from the fun (karaoke, illusions) to the serious (homophobia) to the outrageous (gingerbread sex fantasy).

Of course, the pandemic led to a completely different version of the show than she had imagined directing. The play premiered at the Wilma Theater as a filmed production in 2021, shot in a COVID-19 bubble at an Airbnb in rural Virginia.

It still shined bright enough to claim the Pulitzer in 2022, and a year later it landed on Broadway to rave reviews. The Wilma team has been there nearly every step of the way, becoming a coproducer on the Broadway run.

“So much of art is intuitive. You have to trust your gut, even if you’re not really sure,” Green said. “When people recognize it as good and it wins awards and it sells out and it garners all this affection and celebration, it’s a really incredible feeling to be like, ‘Oh … that was just a guess.’ ”

Green’s sheer burnt orange dress was designed by South Philly boutique Lobo Mau and she wore locally made jewelry from Feast. Goldenberg opted for a purple and silver sequined jumpsuit — complete with a shiny bracelet gifted by Inis Nua artistic director KC MacMillan — while Kelton wore a light pink ruffled gown.

It was their first Tony Awards and the lead-up was thrilling and last-minute. They learned about the Fat Ham afterparty just days before and heard back from the Broadway press team about the protocols for a win. (The Wilma folks would only go onstage if Fat Ham won best play.)

Plus, their families were focused on the real priorities: Goldenberg’s 8-year-old daughter, who loves Into the Woods, wanted her to meet Sara Bareilles and Phillipa Soo, while Kelton’s husband requested an autograph from Wendell Pierce.

Going into the evening, there was a buzzing hope for Fat Ham’s chances. All eyes were on best play, where Ijames was competing with Broadway mainstay Tom Stoppard (Leopoldstadt), Pulitzer winners Martyna Majok (Cost of Living) and Stephen Adly Guirgis (Between Riverside and Crazy), and Jordan E. Cooper (Ain’t No Mo’). In Philly, a collection of theater folks from InterAct, PTC, People’s Light, and Theatre Philadelphia hosted a watch party at the Wilma to cheer from afar.

Earning five nominations was enough to spike the Wilma’s subscriptions for next season — Fat Ham returns in November, where it will finally be performed in Philly in front of a live audience — but taking home the trophy for best play would be groundbreaking, and could be an energizing force to lure Philadelphians back to Broad Street.

In the car en route to Washington Heights’ United Palace, the historic theater hosting the awards, the trio snapped selfies, checked Instagram, and replied to group chats before remembering their waning batteries. The streets were so congested that they hopped out of the Lyft at 178th and Fort Washington Avenue to follow other dapper attendees queuing as a crowd gathered and salsa blasted overhead.

Meanwhile, Ijames was staying at the Algonquin in midtown, where he met their resident orange cat, fittingly named Hamlet. His whereabouts were a mystery leading up to Tony night: The Writer’s Guild had asked nominees not to attend the ceremony due to the strike, and Goldenberg said Ijames was possibly going to skip the show and send a prerecorded statement. (Later via text, he wrote: “Was there word that I might not attend? I don’t recall saying what I planned to do to anyone.”)

He arrived on the red carpet in a dazzling Gucci suit — complete with a black clutch holding protein bars — and later posted a selfie with his husband to Instagram with the caption, “Philly style…”

Inside, the Wilma group sat behind Anna Wintour and across the aisle from Ijames. It was brutally hot, though, and the sound wasn’t great at moments. But during commercial breaks, they networked with producers. Green teared up at the opening number and Goldenberg was impressed by the performance by Parade’s Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond (a Margate, N.J., native).

As winners were announced, Fat Ham lost in the technical categories. Then, Nikki Crawford — the hilarious and layered actor who played Juicy’s mother — lost an acting award, and longtime New York director Saheem Ali was passed over, too. The trio still felt optimistic about best play. “I was holding out a lot of hope because there had just been such a buzz about it,” said Kelton later. “I thought you never know, we could be ditching our purses and running onstage.”

Instead, Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt took the prize. It was his fifth recognition, making him the most awarded playwright in Tony history.

“That was one of a few categories where it was majority people of color, and then a white person won,” Goldenberg said at the Tony afterparty, held outdoors in front of United Palace.

“It’s not a great look,” Green chimed in.

“Three of the people in that category have won Pulitzers for those exact plays, but Stoppard is like the person that [voters] know. … I don’t know what the motivation is,” said Goldenberg, who previously ran Philly’s Barrymore Awards and thinks the Tony process is opaque. “Everybody here is like, ‘How does this even happen?’ ”

Kelton said it was a letdown, but she knows it won’t be Ijames’ only shot at a Tony, and she hopes that the Wilma’s exposure will lead to corporate sponsorships and bigger audiences. The theater is conservatively aiming for 50% capacity when the show returns in November, but Kelton can already feel the Tony-adjacent excitement and its impact on the next season. “Everyone knows Fat Ham is coming and they don’t want to miss it.”

Fat Ham’s afterparty — a joint event with the Sweeney Todd team — was bustling at midtown’s Bond 45 when the Wilma trio arrived. Ijames was holding court in high spirits as dozens squeezed through to get a handshake.

“I’m gonna do one more party and then I’m going hoooome,” he told the group. After embracing Ijames, Goldenberg told him about the Philly watch party and his face lit up.

“I felt this moment was as much a celebration of the Philly theater as it was of Fat Ham!” he wrote via text later. “I’m honored they spent their Sunday evening celebrating me and our play! It’s the best theater city in the country. I’ll always believe that.”