Actors and puppets share the stage for Thornton Wilder's American classic, "The Skin of Our Teeth"

"The Skin of Our Teeth" plays Dec. 3-6. Photo courtesy of CRT.

In Wilder's Pulitzer-winning play, a 20th-century family confronts such epochal events as the coming of the Ice Age, the biblical Great Flood, and cataclysmic war.

One of America’s greatest dramatists, Thornton Wilder, spins a wild and epic play that is at once futuristic and prehistoric - "The Skin of Our Teeth."

In Wilder's Pulitzer-winning play, a 20th-century family confronts such epochal events as the coming of the Ice Age, the biblical Great Flood, and cataclysmic war. The family’s enduring spirit illustrates humanity's resourcefulness and will to survive.

The Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) will present "The Skin of Our Teeth," on Dec. 3 - 6 in the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theater on the Storrs campus.

The CRT production will feature a mixture of professional actors performing alongside advanced student artists.

The show will also feature original puppets from UConn’s renowned puppetry program.

Wilder, who also won the Pulitzer Prize for his play Our Town, created an American original with "The Skin of Our Teeth. " As the director of the show Helene Kvale points out, things haven't changed much since this play was first performed in 1942.

“On September 29, the day the bailout plan was rejected and the stock market crashed 777 points... the next morning I heard on the radio a commentator say, 'The sun rose this morning despite yesterday’s events.'   I had to laugh as I thought of the opening lines of Thornton Wilder’s 'The Skin of Our Teeth': The sun rose this morning at 6:32 a.m. The Society for Affirming the End of the World at once went into a special session and postponed the arrival of that event for 24 hours,'" Kvale said.

Kvale is a member of the performance faculty in the Department of Dramatic Arts and previously directed "The Gut Girls" at CRT, and Marat Sade for the department. She recently directed her own adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" at the Gene Frankel Theater in New York City for Bated Breath Theater, a company she recently founded in Hartford.

Before coming to UConn, she was based in London where she acted in numerous award-winning productions in theater, television, radio, commercials and film.

For tickets and to confirm show dates/times call 860-486-4226, or visit www.crt.uconn.edu. Evening performances start at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings. Matinee performances start at 2 p.m.

Ticket prices range from $11- $29.

CRT is the professional producing arm of the Department of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connecticut. Productions are directed, designed by, and cast with visiting professional artists including Equity actors, faculty members and the department’s most advanced student artists.

Posted Nov. 27, 2008