All About Us (musical)

Based on Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic comedy The Skin of Our Teeth, it finds the prehistoric Antrobus family and their maid Sabina dealing with life's trials and tribulations, including the Ice Age, a great flood, and a devastating war as they traverse the centuries in a testament to human will and resilience.

Originally entitled Over and Over, the musical had its first professional staging in January-February 1999 at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, with a cast that included Dorothy Loudon, David Garrison, and Mario Cantone. Sherie Rene Scott replaced Bebe Neuwirth shortly before the opening in the role of Sabrina. That role had been done by Bernadette Peters at a first reading. Chip Crews wrote: "It's a little hard to imagine Neuwirth as Sabina. Remember, for that first reading, the team used Bernadette Peters in the role, and Kander says she was terrific. There may be parts in which both actresses would score, but not many. Critical reception was lukewarm, and the creative team reworked it in a number of workshop productions, at one point reverting to Wilder's original title, but never felt it was ready for Broadway. Following Ebb's death in 2004, the project was abandoned.

A reading of a revamped version, rechristened All About Us, was held on January 17, 2006 in New York City, with Eartha Kitt and Karen Ziemba among the participants. The Westport Country Playhouse presented a full staging with Kitt, Cady Huffman, and Shuler Hensley from April 10-28, 2007. In her review in the New York Times, Sylviane Gold praised Kitt ("Is there anything that can't be saved by Eartha Kitt? She's demonstrating that there is indeed a good reason for All About Us") but said of the show "[it] never achieves the critical mass that transforms a collection of discrete numbers into an all-embracing universe.

References

External links

• Theatremania review
• Variety review, April 16, 2007
• Press and other information
• Theatremania article