Larry is a Tony® Award-winning, Emmy-winning producer-entertainment executive. As a principal of TheatreDreams, he has co-produced Craig Lucas’ Prelude to a Kiss with Mary Louis Parker, Neil Simon's The Dinner Party, starring Henry Winkler and John Ritter. With Dodger Theatrical Productions, he co-produced the smash hit musical Urinetown which won three Tony awards, and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, starring Vanessa Williams, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival in 2002, The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations in 2005, and the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012.

TheatreDreams is a partner in the production of Jersey Boys as well as a co-presenter of the show in Chicago. Wilker is also a partner in the Las Vegas, London, Australian, of Broadway and National Tour productions of Jersey Boys. TheatreDreams is a partner in A Bronx Tale, Matilda the Musical on Broadway and on tour, the Broadway musical Groundhog Day and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical which opened in April 2018.

Wilker organized TheatreDreams with Bill Becker after retiring as President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in April, 2000. When his leaving the Kennedy Center position was announced, The Washington Post published a highly laudatory editorial about his 10-year tenure. (view article)

Until October 2007, TheatreDreams owned and operated The Legendary Chicago Theatre and built it from minimal use to the 13th highest grossing pop music venue in the U.S. The Theatre was nominated for Theater of the Year two years in a row by Pollstar Magazine. TheatreDreams operated The Kodak Theatre (now The Dolby Theatre) in Los Angeles, California, the home of the Academy Awards, until March, 2008.

TheatreDreams also operated the Lyric Theatre in Baltimore from 2002 to 2003, establishing its first theater subscription series.

In the fall of 2007 TheatreDreams was engaged by the troubled Carnival Center of the Performing Arts (now the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County) in Miami to provide interim management services. Over 14 months under Wilker's leadership, TheatreDreams:

• helped secure a $30 million naming gift;

• stabilized the finances, ending the last fiscal year with a surplus;

• dramatically increased the quality and amount of programming;

• increased annual attendance from 41% to over 70%;

• improved public perception and acceptance of the Center as a valuable community institution;

• reorganized the institution for increased efficiency and productivity and recruited a top-notch CEO to run the institution on a permanent basis; and

• Dramatically increased the reach and effectiveness of arts education by instituting programs that annually reached over 30,000 Miami Dade children through performances and family activities. In addition, created curriculum guides for teachers ties directly to performances at the Center including Rock Odyssey and Jazz Roots.

From 2013-2017 Wilker served as a consultant to the recently opened Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida. He was involved in all aspects of the operation, but was instrumental in crafting the artistic programs to insure they served the whole community and contributed profitably to the bottom line. During his involvement The Center netted $6-7 million annually.

At the Kennedy Center, Wilker oversaw a $120 million a year arts and entertainment organization. When he assumed leadership of the Kennedy Center it was $7 million in debt, experiencing ever-declining attendance and progressively fewer productions while increasing debt by almost $2 million per year. Although he was operating a non-profit organization under the strictures of government, in less than 5 years, Wilker:

• paid off all debt;

• more than doubled the attendance from 900,000 to almost two million per year;

• more than doubled the number of performances from 1,580 to over 3,300 per year;

• increased fund raising from $13 million to $38 million per year.

• Organized a $320 million renovation of the iconic 1971 building;

• Created international festivals each year focusing on a different country or region including Africa (a 3 year festival), Ireland, Israel (The U.S.’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of that country), and Russia;

• Established a major Ballet series that featured the best of American and International companies, including the Bolshoi Ballet (first time in U.S in 10 years and subsequently Kennedy Center toured the company in the U.S.), The Kirov Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and The Royal Ballet;

• Created a modern dance series in association with The American Dance Festival that presented and commissioned works from the best companies from around the world;

• Created a relationship with The Royal Shakespeare Company to visit the center annually and present multiple plays in repertory;

• Broadened access to The Center by creating daily free performances in the lobbies (named The Millennium Stages), Pay-What-You-Can days and free shuttle buses from the Metro to the Center;

• Brought innovative programming to the Center that created new and different audience/performer relationships such as Hotel Room in the Town of NN, Les Arts Saux, Shockheaded Peter and The Battle of Stalingrad;

• Organized a multi-million dollar complete renovation of the iconic 1971 building to include a new arrival entrance, renovation of each theatre, a new roof and expanded parking garage. Convinced congress to fund the almost $400 million project;

• Dramatically increased the education department to provide teacher training in arts education on a national scale, educational materials, and performances for young audiences both at the Center and around the U.S. Kennedy Center performances toured the United States annually and encompassed curriculum guides and teach training workshops; and

• Instituted interpretive and interactive exhibits in the lobbies about the life and contributions of President John F. Kennedy.

Wilker brought a new dimension of creative leadership to the Kennedy Center. He revived a PBS series, "Kennedy Center Presents," and created the "Mark Twain Comedy Awards" on Comedy Central. In association with the American Dance Festival he produced "Free To Dance," a mini-series chronicling the African-American contribution to Dance. It won an Emmy Award. He produced the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Kennedy Center that was broadcast on PBS and was nominated for an Emmy. He instituted national tours of Kennedy Center theatrical and family entertainment, free concerts, circus and cabaret productions, a psychographically designed schedule of offerings aimed at broadening the appeal and scope of the Kennedy Center. Wilker grew the theatre subscription series at the Kennedy Center to the point where it regularly returned $2 million a year to the institution.

Wilker dramatically expanded the Kennedy Center offerings by presenting/producing jazz, country music, international productions, comedy, and productions aimed at a family audience. He established four different jazz series, including Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center, which was broadcast throughout the U.S. over National Public Radio. Wilker introduced the Italian singing sensation Andrea Bocelli to America by presenting him in concert at the Kennedy Center. Then, in the fall of 1998 he presented Bocelli, in association with Princeton Entertainment, in 27 concerts throughout the U.S., grossing over $28 million.

Wilker's proven eye for discovering mass-market productions does not end with Andrea Bocelli. Through The Center, he co-produced several musical theater productions that played successfully on Broadway and toured throughout the United States. These shows include the acclaimed revivals of Guys and Dolls, The King and I (both Tony Award winners for Best Musical Revival), How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Who's Tommy, and The Music Man, as well as the Tony Award-winning best musical of 1997, Titanic. Wilker earned the Kennedy Center more than $2 million in profits from these productions. Guys and Dolls alone returned more than 160% to investors.

Prior to the Kennedy Center, Wilker served as President of Playhouse Square Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. When Wilker arrived in 1982, Cleveland was in distress. It was the only City in America to go bankrupt. Heavy industry, long the underpinning of its economy, was dying off; unemployment was very high and growing. The downtown was virtually abandoned. Wilker took three shuttered movie/vaudeville theaters, raised $40 million, renovated, interconnected and operated them as an 11,000 seat performing arts center with a broad array of programming that included touring Broadway theatre, pop music, comedy, ballet, as well as sit-down self-produced productions (Pump Boys and Dinettes,Song of Singapore, Jacques Brel). Wilker co-produced for the Foundation for Broadway and/or tour Gospel at Colonus, Beehive, Prelude to a Kiss, and The Secret Garden).

The Playhouse Square project remains the largest theatre restoration project in the world and provided the stimulus for the revival of Cleveland. Early on Wilker bought or controlled the real estate surrounding the theatres at bargain prices because of the lack of interest in downtown real estate. As more than one million people annually came to the theatres, this real estate became valuable and Wilker (through a subsidiary he created) developed a 280,000 sq ft office tower, 200 room Wyndham Hotel, 1200 car parking garage, and leased space to several restaurants. The project became a model of how to use arts and entertainment as a catalyst for urban renewal. The Federal Reserve used the project as a case study (1985) and among many laudatory conclusions demonstrated that the theatres were responsible for bringing in $15 million per year in export dollars to the City of Cleveland, stimulating 1700 new jobs, and creating 71 new businesses in the area. The real estate projects not only helped to revive the City, but also provided significant cash income to the foundation.

Prior to Cleveland, Wilker served as Director of Properties (theaters and real estate) for the Shubert Organization in New York, which owned and operated 23 theatres in New York City and around the United States. Wilker presided over the first renovation of these historic properties since they were built early in the 20th Century.

Wilker has either built or renovated twelve theaters, served as Vice President of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Foundation, was a founder of The League of Historic American Theatres and Founder and President of the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware. Wilker Holds a BA in Economics and an MFA in Theatre from the University of Massachusetts, and a PhD in Theatre from the University of Illinois. He is married to Jill Wilker and has two children, Eric (an executive at Amazon) and Michelle (Associate Producer of television specials, including Comedy Central’s "Last Laugh" and CNN’s "Heroes").