University Theatre, the academic year production program in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at UNL, opens it spring season with the Thornton Wilder classic, “The Skin of Our Teeth.”
Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. March 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and at 2 p.m. March 15 in the Howell Theatre on the first floor of the Temple Building, 12th and R streets.
Tickets are available at the Lied Center Ticket Office, at 402-472-4747 or one hour prior to curtain in the Temple Lobby. Tickets are $16 for the general public, $14 for faculty, staff and senior citizens, and $10 for students. Tickets are also available online at http://arts.unl.edu/theatre-and-film.
Professor Virginia Smith directs this 1943 Pulitzer Prize winner for Best Drama that breaks with established theatrical conventions, incorporating numerous styles in its telling of the Antrobus family with parents, George and Maggie, their children, Gladys and Henry, and maid, Sabina. Written post-depression, this “typical American family” struggles through the Ice Age, a great flood and a great war during each of three acts.
Smith explains, “What’s happening to you and your world right now is not unique. Some version of it has happened before and will no doubt happen again. Life is about struggle and overcoming. Part of why this is so clear to us is that in 1942 Thornton Wilder, in the midst of death, destruction and uncertainty, saw the pattern and wrote a play; a play about hope, about overcoming. This is that play.”
Graduate student Chadwick Taylor assists Smith. The Antrobus family is comprised of undergraduate performance majors Luke C. Glassman, as George Antrobus; EmmaJane Gruhl, as Maggie Antrobus; Emma Fisher, as Gladys; Jorden Charley-Whatley, as Henry; and Kayla Klammer, as the maid, Sabina. Members of the ensemble are Amy Almond, Abbie Austin, Taylor Adair Baggett, Michael Barth, Andrew Hill, Bryan Howard, Michelle Ingle, Madison Taylor Nichols, Christian Novotny, Lindsey Parodi, Nicholas Prior and Tony Thomas.
The production is designed by Sheric Hull with lighting, Megan Cudd with costumes, Sonia Sandoval with sound, Alexis Borchardt with projections and Michaela Lynne Stein with scenery. Stein’s designs are in partial fulfillment of her Master of Fine Arts degree in scenic design. Stephanie Rae Kahler will stage manage.
