Led by Blanka and Jiří Žižka, Wilma has become one of the most respected repertory theatres in the USA (Tom Stoppard, among the others, thinks of it as being his US home stage). The production of Leaving will be directed by Jiří Žižka who staged several plays by Havel (including a remarkable TV version of Largo desolato in the 1990s). The theatre tested the quality of the text at a successful rehearsed reading last February with F. Murray Abraham, the celebrated actor who performed Salieri in Milos Forman’s Amadeus in the role of Chancellor Rieger.
In the full production, scheduled for May 2010, the role is to go to another famous Hollywood film actor according to the preliminary casting reports. If the production is successful, a transfer to a New York theatre is expected by Wilma Theater management.