Review: The Wilma Theater’s Snow Queen Is a Family Show to Melt Hearts

The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, perhaps best known today for launching James Ijames’s Fat Ham and winning the 2024 regional theater Tony Award, is not the place you would normally find a play for the entire family. Their season opener is a new pursuit, an all-ages version of The Snow Queen, featuring the strong acting and smart production choices that make the theater such a staple of Philadelphia’s theater scene.

The cast of The Snow Queen comes from the Wilma HotHouse Company, a core group of actors who perform together regularly in same theater. This rich history and ease of performing together was on full display in this production of Evgeny Schwartz’s work, translated by Mike Lion and Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox. Schwartz was best known for plays like The Dragon, which is a political allegory about dictatorship and totalitarianism.

In keeping with this theme, Schwartz turned to Hans Christian Anderson for this play about an evil queen who has stolen a boy named Kai, prompting Kai’s friend Gerda to undertake a journey to save him. Along the way, Gerda meets several eccentric characters who try to both help and hinder her journey. There is a character named Elsa here, but The Snow Queen is no Frozen.

The Wilma’s production is directed by Yury Urnov, who recently helmed the world premiere of Sasha Denisova’s My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion in a Wilma co-production with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Urnov’s staging uses beautiful, bright design (set by Misha Kachman; lighting by Thom Weaver; and costumes by Baily Hammett and Ivania Stack) alongside clear pacing and physical humor.

A storyteller, the relatable and funny Anthony Martinez-Briggs, guides the audience through the story. Although there are evil characters who want to kill Gerda, played with heart and charm by the wonderful Bi Jean Ngo, the use of elements such as Nerf guns and cartoon-style fight scenes keeps the action light while still acknowledging the real dangers at hand.

Perhaps the largest overall directorial choice is the foregrounding of all the discussions of ice throughout the play. The Snow Queen, played by the multitalented Sarah Gilko, is so cold in emotion and physicality that she threatens to freeze everyone. This leads to many lines about how ice—both frozen water and a pretty clear allusion to the country’s current immigration crisis—could arrive at any time and take away someone’s loved ones. The Wilma has embraced this unfortunate timeliness by selling a shirt that says, “Melt ICE.”

Choices like this enable the Wilma to present an engaging show to audience members of a variety of ages. But the true stars are the amazing performers whose energy and physical comedy keep you on the edge of your seat Martinez-Briggs’s Storyteller is a perfect throughline. Ngo’s Gerda has a true connection with Brandon J. Pierce’s sweet Kai. Gilko’s evil Snow Queen and Ross Beschler’s creepy Councilor contrast their delightful turns as Mrs. and Mr. Crow and musicians. Suli Holum, Justin Jain, Taysha Marie Canales, and Melanye Finister supply the play with an unforgettable group of characters.

Without spoiling the ending, the Wilma’s production of The Snow Queen reminds us that the power of friendship and community building can awaken our hearts, so we can save each other from (the) ice.