Thornton Wilder's plays to be presented in the Blackbox

An evening of six short plays - linked together to illuminate a famed American playwright's vivid language and rich vision - will be presented in for six performances Friday through Wednesday, March 5 - 10. Five of the performances will begin at 8 p.m. in the Blackbox in Bernhard Theater; the performance on Sunday, March 7, will be a matinee beginning at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $12 for general admission, and $8 for senior citizens and members of the Skidmore community. Seating is limited, and reservations are strongly recommended. For reservations, call the Bernhard Theater box office at 518-580-5439.

Directed by Skidmore seniors Meredith Hackman and Katherine Sommer, the evening features two of Wilder's most celebrated and frequently performed short plays, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden and The Long Christmas Dinner. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden tells of a family's car trip to visit a married daughter. As the family members talk, laugh, and recall memories happy and sorrowful, they experience both the mundane and the sublime aspects of living in the moment. The Long Christmas Dinner breaks the usual temporal boundaries to bring together several generations of one family  - over a span of nine decades  -to share what Wilder calls "one long, happy Christmas dinner."As succeeding generations take their seats at the table, grow, age, and depart, the audience observes both the changes and the similarities.

Four of Wilder's much shorter plays (each only three pages long) are also integral elements in The Trivial and the Divine. To tie the six plays together, directors Hackman and Sommer"imposed a sort of creative arc, bringing them together to tell one larger story,"according to Sommer. Together, the plays demonstrate how Wilder's strong characters and colorful language can illuminate the beauty of an ordinary world. As a New York Times critic once put it, "Wilder's tone is dry, fond; if God were to dabble in anthropology, and the recording angels to write with wry humor and infinite tolerance of human folly, this is how the holy books would read."

An internationally acclaimed writer and playwright whose works continue to be read and performed worldwide, Thornton Wilder (1897?1975) is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play Our Town (1938). His 1942 play The Skin of Our Teeth also won a Pulitzer, as did his breakthrough 1927 novel , The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Wilder's play The Matchmaker (1954) became the source for the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! In 1962, Wilder received the first National Medal for Literature at a special White House ceremony. Among many other awards, he also received thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and the National Book Award in 1967 for his novel The Eighth Day.

Born in Madison, Wisc., Wilder studied Greek and Roman classics at Oberlin College. He completed a B.A. from Yale University in 1920, and an M.A. in French literature from Princeton University in 1926. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War I and in U.S. Army Air Force Intelligence during World War II. During his career as a teacher and writer, Wilder published translations, conducted research, acted onstage, and wrote seven best-selling novels, along with essays, opera libretti and a screenplay, 10 full-length plays and 17 short ones.

Among Wilder's great themes are the human experience, the cyclical nature of history, the enduring value of literature and faith, and a passion for"the trivial and the divine" - a drive to explore"the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience,"as one biographer put it.