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Skin of Our Teeth, The

  • Thornton Wilder
  • Full Length Play, Comedy, Ancient, Contemporary
  • 4M, 4F
  • ISBN: 9780573615481

"Wonderfully wise... A tremendously exciting and profound stage fable."

Herald Tribune

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Comedy
  • 120 minutes

  • Time Period: Ancient, Contemporary
  • Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings

  • Performance Group:
  • Large Stage, Community Theatre, High School/Secondary, Professional Theatre, College Theatre / Student

  • Accolades:
  • Winner! 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
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: 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 ("I don't understand a word of this play!"). 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 the author less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1971, The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire, and elements of the comic strip, Thornton 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.
REVIEWS:

"...extraordinarily good...one of the finest American plays of the 20th century, a modern classic that ought to be seen as often as Our Town."

 Wall Street Journal

"Wonderfully wise... A tremendously exciting and profound stage fable."

 Herald Tribune

"For an American dramatist, all roads lead back to Thornton Wilder... The Skin of Our Teeth was a remarkable gift to an America entrenched in catastophe, a tribute to the trait of human endurance."

 Paula Vogel, Foreword, The Skin of Our Teeth

Premiere Production: The Skin of Our Teeth premiered on Broadway on November 18, 1942 with Tallulah Bankhead (Sabina), Fredric March (Mr. Antrobus) and Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Antrobus), directed by Elia Kazan.

Characters

  • Casting: 4M, 4F
  • Casting Attributes: Reduced casting (Doubling Possible), Local Celebrity Cameo, Room for Extras, Non-Traditional casting, Parts for Senior Actors, Expandable casting, Strong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle), Strong Role for Leading Man (Star Vehicle)
  • Casting Notes: Also many small male and female roles available.

  • ANNOUNCER
    SABINA
    MR. FITZPATRICK
    MRS. ANTROBUS
    DINOSAUR
    MAMMOTH
    TELEGRAPH BOY
    GLADYS
    HENRY
    MR. ANTROBUS
    DOCTOR
    PROFESSOR
    JUDGE
    HOMER
    MISS E. MUSE
    MISS T. MUSE
    MISS M. MUSE
    USHER (2)
    GIRL (DRUM MAJORETTE)
    FORTUNE TELLER
    CHAIR PUSHER (2)
    CONVEENER
    BROADCAST OFFICIAL
    DEFEATED CANDIDATE
    MR. TREMAYNE
    HESTER
    IVY
    FRED BAILEY

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Skin of Our Teeth, The Script This is optional. Order Now

    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: 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 ("I don't understand a word of this play!")

    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 the author less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1971, The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire, and elements of the comic strip, Thornton 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.

    		$24.95

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