WILDERNESS GENERATION

About the show

A powerful, funny, and deeply human world premiere from Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames (Fat Ham), Wilderness Generation, directed by PTC Artistic Director Taibi Magar, invites us into a family reunion layered with memory, music, and the emotional weight of what we inherit and what we choose to carry forward. Over one summer weekend in the Tidewater South, four cousins gather at their grandmother’s home—a place steeped in family lore and unspoken truths. As laughter gives way to old wounds and long-buried secrets, what begins as a celebration becomes a reckoning. Through razor-sharp dialogue, Ijames explores the cycles of silence and survival that define a generation raised in the shadows of trauma—and the strength it takes to imagine something different. With echoes of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Wilderness Generation is a deeply resonant, Black Southern family drama brimming with humor, heartbreak, and healing.