The 2023 WOW Festival Hits High Notes at the Rady Shell
By Makayla Hoppe for the San Diego Jewish Journal
Since 2013, La Jolla Playhouse has offered new and imaginative performances outside traditional theater thanks to the Without Walls Festival. For the 2023 WOW Festival, the Playhouse has joined forces with the San Diego Symphony to put on an event that highlights the best of what both organizations bring to San Diego.
According to Festival Producer Amy Ashton, the Playhouse and the Symphony have had a creative relationship for years, and It is for this reason that the 2023 WOW Festival will take place at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.
In 2020, Ashton and other Playhouse staff were able to view the Rady Shell while it was still under construction.
“We went to go take a tour of this brand new site, and as we were walking around, some of our colleagues were like, ‘This is exactly the kind of space that we would love to use for WOW.’ [We talked] to their team about the intentions of it being a public park and a really incredible place for San Diego…to be able to experience all sorts of different events, and to open up that part of the Waterfront to the city,” said Ashton.
This is the first time the WOW Festival has collaborated with another San Diego institution of this magnitude. Previous years of the festival took place at Liberty Station, and while Liberty Station is an art institution in its own right, it isn’t quite the same. Ashton explained that the partnership with the Symphony is significant because they are not just hosting the event, they are also contributing to it.
The Symphony’s installation for the festival is an interactive one, something that the Playhouse seems to enjoy bringing to each of its festivals.
“Instrumentalists will be playing along with an innate, originally-written piece by Ryan Carter, who has created a way for audiences to become a part of the ensemble with their cell phones. So there’ll be live musicians stationed around the whole lawn, and then audience members will be instructed and invited to participate in how that music gets made in a way that I am really, really excited to see happen,” Ashton said.
Bringing theater and other art installations outside has always been one of the big selling points of the festival. Not only does the WOW festival break away from the confines of a building, but it also brings in productions from outside the city.
Ashton has found a wide range of theater for this year’s lineup–free for all who wish to attend. “Just over half of the productions are from local groups, and then the other half is made up of national and international folks, which is pretty good for where we’re at right now. I think we would like to have a little more international presence, but…it is not easy to get folks over here, as you can imagine,” she said.
The Playhouse finds yearly performers by posting calls online and accepting proposals on its website. However, Ashton and her colleagues do get to seek out productions with a more direct approach. One of the productions this year hails all the way from Europe, and Ashton was able to see it first-hand.
“Last summer, myself and one of my colleagues spent time in the Netherlands, France and England to meet some of the international groups that we’ve been hearing about or that we’ve been getting proposals from. [We wanted] to see how their festivals are run and glean new information because Europe has a stronger festival atmosphere than the United States does,” Ashton said.
WOW Festival 2023 will take place April 27-30, 2023, and the programming will have shows for guests of all ages. The beginning of the day includes family-friendly productions including interactive art and presentations specifically for kids. More adult-oriented art will begin to play as the day goes on and the sun sets.
La Jolla Playhouse’s mission is to advance theater as an art form. With the event this year being free to guests, it is clear that the Playhouse wants to offer these opportunities as a gift to all of San Diego.
“I think we talk a lot about how the work that we do challenges the boundaries between artists, art and the audience. So that the audience’s experience with the art is different than what you would get as a subscription at the La Jolla Playhouse where you purchase a ticket, you know where you’re going to sit, you’re gonna clap at the end and the lights are gonna go down,” Ashton remarked.
“And for us, the ability to put that off-kilter…we never know what you’re gonna get, or you never know what’s going to turn into art or a performer, or if you’re going to be able to interact with it or change how it’s experienced. That is a really magical space to live in. And the festival gives us a chance to kind of create a playground for that.”
To See or Not To See 