From left, Alexander Paris, Patricia Sherick-Gronlund, Rae E. Jones, Christa Smith, Will Gronlund, Maureen Johnston, Erika Cronin. (Courtesy of Gilles Brown)

Thornton Wilder fans won’t want to miss a pair of special events coming to Bisbee and Sierra Vista this December.

Bisbee’s Obscure Productions has teamed up with Cochise College‘s Theatre Workshop class to produce Wilder’s famous “The Skin of Our Teeth,” showing the first two weekends in December. In between those performances, award-winning author Tom Miller will give a presentation about the 18 months Wilder himself spent in southeast Arizona during the early 1960s.

Bisbee High School student Zak Jacob as the Telegraph Boy with Rae E. Jones as Mrs. Antrobus. (Courtesy of Gilles Brown)

“We’re having a great time with the play,” said Cochise College theater instructor Lucinda Sage-Midgorden. “I’m excited that we’ve got talent from several places in Cochise County. We’ve been blessed with some interesting serendipitous coincidences.”

“The Skin of Our Teeth” was written in 1942 and won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for drama. According to the official Wilder website, the play combines “farce, burlesque, and satire, and elements of the comic strip,” and the plot “depicts an Everyman Family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war.”

In each disastrous scenario, the story explains, we’ve managed to survive — by the skin of our teeth.

The play will be on stage at the Central School Project in Old Bisbee. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 30, Dec. 1, 7 and 8. Sunday performances begin at 3 p.m. on Dec. 2 and 9.

Advance tickets are $10, available at Atalanta’s Music and Books, the Bisbee Food Coop, by mail or by credit card (plus $1) over the phone. Tickets will be $12 at the door, or just $6 for children and students with an ID at the door.

Contact Bisbee’s Obscure Productions at (520) 432-2901 or theaterbisbee@gmail.com. The production is also supported by Central School Project and the Bisbee 1000.

On Dec. 4, Miller’s “Thornton Wilder’s Arizona Days” presentation begins at 2 p.m. in the Mona Bishop Room at the Sierra Vista Public Library. It is open to the public and sponsored by the Arizona Humanities Council.

After 18 months in Douglas, beginning in 1962, Wilder left the area rejuvenated by his relative anonymity and returned east with his literary skills re-energized. This unknown slice of Arizona’s recent past reveals the crossroads of a Cochise County town with the American literary establishment. For more information about Miller’s presentation, call (520) 458-4225.

Bisbee’s Obscure Productions’ “The Skin of Our Teeth” features several faces recognizable to the community. Christa Smith, Cochise College student and BOP veteran, will play Sabina. Bisbee’s Zak Jacob is the Telegraph Boy. Mrs. Antrobus will be played by Rae E. Jones, BOP founder, a Cochise graduate and now associate theater faculty, while Will Gronlund will play Mr. Antrobus.

Cast members also include Curt Stetter, Chuck Feil, Yvonne Grimm and Bisbee student Alexander Paris. Also vital to the production were Cochise students Paul Brya, Erika Cronin and Anthony Rich, as well as Buena student Maureen Johnston. Aaron Sneary, who works on Fort Huachuca and has a theater degree, offered his skills as the production’s set designer.

Sage-Midgorden’s Theatre Workshop class offered students an opportunity for hands-on learning outside the classroom. Now that it’s close to showtime, she is pleased with how well actors from Bisbee’s Obscure Productions and students from Cochise, Bisbee and Buena have worked together to create a successful production of one of her favorite plays.

“There are so many wacky things that happen in the midst of the impending doom of the human race from the ice age, the flood and war,” Sage-Midgorden said. “But we manage to survive, by the skin of our teeth. Wilder breaks the conventions of what we have come to expect from a play performance, to shake us up and get us to think about our resilience and give us hope for the future.”

“The Skin of Our Teeth”
Presented at the Central School Project
43 Howell Ave., Old Bisbee

Showtimes:

  • 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays
    Nov. 30, Dec. 1, 7 and 8
  • 3 p.m., Sundays
    Dec. 2 and 9

Tickets:

  • $10 in advance
    at Atalanta’s Music and Books, Bisbee Food Coop
    by mail from BOP at PO Box 277, Bisbee AZ 85603
    call for credit card sales, add $1, (520) 432-2901
  • $12 at the door
  • $6 for children and students with ID at the door only

Bisbee’s Obscure Productions:
(520) 432-2901 • theaterbisbee@gmail.com

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