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The Skin of Our Teeth

The Antrobus family might be an ordinary American family but the cast at Constellation for Skin of Our Teeth is simply superb!

There is a husband and wife, George and Maggie (Steven Carpenter and Lolita Marie)  and their two children—a scarred boy —Henry —and the perfect girl— Gladys. (Dallas Tolentino and Malinda Kathleen Reese).  Clue is that Henry was once called Cain.

Then there’s the maid, Sabina (Tonya Beckman), a combination of Lillith and the Sabine women. 

 Everyone wants to get into the act.  In Thornton Wilder’s absurdist American classic Skin of Our Teeth,  they do.  

 For starters, there are such unlikely characters as a baby dinosaur and a wooly mammoth.  Along comes Moses and the three Muses.  There’s a fortune teller and Plato.  

All have their place in the lives of the Antrobus family  in telling this story that moves from their home in Excelcior, New Jersey, in the path of a gigantic glacier sweeping the continent, to an Atlantic City boardwalk when the alarms go off for the Biblical Flood, and then back to their home, now a bomb shelter brimming with books after an apocalyptic war.

In their 5,000 years of married life,  George and Maggie have seen  and survived it all — including the constant threat of  Sabina to quit—with equanimity.

While critics in 1942 praised this frisky farce, which has no limits to what it will do for a laugh,  Wilder, who would serve in World War II,  had a more serious message.  Taking the title from Job 19:20: “ I am escaped with the skin of my teeth,” Wilder posits that  human beings have no limits in what they will endure to survive and go on.
Mary Hall Surface directs.  The  creative collaborators who have taken on the fantastic include Costume Designer Frank Labovitz  who dressed everyone from  beauty pageant contestants to refugees; A.J. Guban as both Scenic and Lighting Designer; Justin Schmitz, s as Sound Designer; Matthew Aldwin McGee as Puppet Designer; Jimmy Stubbs for Props Designer; and Casey Kalebarounds as Fight Choreographer. 
The cast includes Jenna Berk (Stage Manager/Ensemble), Natalie Cutcher (Ivy/Ensemble), Lilian Oben (Fortune Teller/Ensemble), and Keith Richards (Mr. Tremayne/Ensemble), Gerrad Alex Taylor (Telegraph Boy/Interviewer/Ensemble), Ben Lauer (Dolly/Broadcast Official/Ensemble), Colin Connor (Frederick/Fred Bailey/Ensemble), and Mary Miller-Booker (Broadcast Official/Hester/Ensemble), and understudies Billie Krishawn, Jack Novak, Valerie Adams Rigsbee, and Nate Shelton. 

WHO: Constellation Theatre Company 
WHERE: Source, 1835 14th St. NW, Washington DC 20009 
WHEN: January 11 – February 11, 2018 
WEBSITE: www.ConstellationTheatre.org 




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