“The Skin of Our Teeth" at Augustana College -- May 7 through 10.
Thursday, May 7, through Sunday, May 10
Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
A Pulitzer Prize winner hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the finest American plays of the 20th century," Thornton Wilder's classic The Skin of Our Teeth enjoys a May 7 through 10 staging in Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, the 1942 play also lauded by the Herald-Tribune as "wonderfully wise" and "a tremendously exciting and profound stage fable.
In The Skin of Our Teeth, audiences are invited to meet George and Maggie Antrobus of Excelsior, New Jersey, a suburban, commuter-town couple (married for 5,000 years), who bear more than a casual resemblance to that first husband and wife, Adam and Eve. We're also introduced to the two Antrobus children, Gladys (perfect in every way, of course) and Henry (who likes to throw rocks and was formerly known as Cain), and their garrulous maid Sabina (the eternal seductress), who takes it upon herself to break out of character and interrupt the course of the drama at every opportunity. Whether he is inventing the alphabet or merely saving the world from apocalypse, George and his redoubtable family somehow manage to survive – by the skin of their teeth.
Completed by Our Town author Thornton Wilder less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, The Skin of Our Teeth broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, satire, and elements of the comic strip, Wilder depicts an Everyman family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war.
Directing The Skin of Our Teeth is Augustana's longtime Professor of Theatre Arts and department Co-Chair Jeff Coussens, whose recent productions for the college have included The Comedy of Errors, Our Country's Good, Tartuffe, and The 39 Steps. Linnea Strack serves as the production's stage manager and Max De Buys its assistant director, with additional members of Coussens' creative team including: assistant stage manager Phenoix Martin; scenic/lighting/sound designer and technical director Mike Turczynski; costume designer Becki Arnold; assistant costume designer and wardrobe head Arler Ohlmiller; projection designer, film aspect manager, and deck hand Rylon Hall; props master Will McIver; assistant/associate technical director Ben Adams; light-board operator Rhiana Winston; assistant/associate lighting designer Alyssa Ogrodny; and deck hand Adrien Lutes.
Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus are respectively played by Noah Johnson and Sora Richter, with the rest of Wilder's wild household composed of Maya Haynes as Gladys, Elijah Morton as Henry, and Ludovica Chiovini as Sabina. Kallik Ewen portrays the Fortune Teller, with the Skin of Our Teeth ensemble playing a variety of different roles, the talents including: DJ Roberts, Ruby Tolnai, Jack Pawlak, Lex Mikulski, Addon Rogers, Leo Kopplin, Lexi Horn, AdeleBartlein, Basil Alexander, and Alex Wohlers.
The Skin of Our Teeth will be performed in Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center May 7 through 10, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Admission is $10-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)794-7306 and visiting Augustana.edu/tickets.
