The Skin of Our Teeth

The Staff: Director: Dan Rogers '08 Assistant Director: Jenn Simonian '09 Stage Manager: Amanda Glassman '08 Production Manager: Nick Leiserson '09 Tech Director: Matt Ball '09 Set Designer: Peter Fallon '09 Scenic Painter: Laura Atkinson '07 Lighting designer: Justin Spiegel '08 Sound designer: Todd Lipcon '07 Costume Designer: The Story (so far): The Skin of Our Teeth received its first performance in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 15, 1942. The United States had declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, and the Battle of Stalingrad, which would, in 1943, mark the first major German defeat of the war, had on just begun on September 13. Meanwhile American troops were becoming more and more involved in the War on both fronts. The themes of war are echoed in the text: man's potential for savagery, the progress of science (Hiroshima was bombed in 1945), and man's determination to survive. This play is about humanity and what it does in the face of tragedy. How do we pull through in a world that repeats itself with natural disasters, family problems, and, as Wilder's audience in 1942 saw (and we today see), war? The Skin of Our Teeth presents the whole of human history as its story, and comes to the conclusion that, in the end, all that we really have is each other. What we need to go on living is hope and faith – in progress, in the future, and in all of humanity. One of the important concepts to grasp in reading this work is its cyclical nature.