Skin of Our Teeth
Meet George and Maggie Antrobus of Excelsior, New Jersey, a suburban, commuter-town couple (married for 5,000 years), who bear more than a casual resemblance to that first husband and wife, Adam and Eve: the two Antrobus children, Gladys (perfect in every way, of course) and Henry (who likes to throw rocks and was formerly known as Cain); and their garrulous maid, Sabina (the eternal seductress), who takes it upon herself to break out of character and interrupt the course of the drama at every opportunity (“I don’t understand a word of this play!”). Whether he is inventing the alphabet or merely saving the world from apocalypse, George and his redoubtable family somehow manage to survive – by the skin of their teeth.
Completed by the author less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, satire, and elements of the comic strip, Thornton Wilder depicts an Everyman Family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war.
Painting Churches
“Painting Churches… was the second show of the 88-89 season. As I began compiling clips and photos for tonight, I had a surprising and sobering realization. Churches was the first show I did with OxACT, and I played the daughter of a poet and his wife, played by Ray Carleton and Mollie Weller. The play was directed by Biz Campbell, and Nora Ellen was the assistant director. The sobering realization was that, of the five of us, only Nora Ellen and I are left. Mollie passed several years ago, followed by Biz in 2004, and Ray just a couple of years ago. I started to think about all of the people who have been involved with OxACT who have gone to the Ultimate After Party, and wanted us to take just a moment to remember them. Ray, Mollie, Biz, Bob White, Jim Malott, Marcia Olcott, and Bill Bruhn, along with Michael Benson, Betty Stousland, Mollie’s husband Harry, and I’m sure many others I don’t know about. I have no doubt that everyone here tonight has fond memories of someone, or several someones, who aren’t here to share this evening with us. Well, truth be told, I’m sure they are sharing it….”
– Becky Howard, at the OxACT 30th Anniversary Gala
Morning’s at Seven
Morning’s at Seven is a play by Paul Osborn. Its plot focuses on four aging sisters living in a small Midwestern town in 1928, and it deals with ramifications within the family when two of them begin to question their lives and decide to make some changes before it’s too late.
All My Sons
How far would a man go to protect his family, his interests, and his legacy? Joe Keller, the patriarch in All My Sons, desperately wants to secure and maintain the financial security and legacy he spent so many years building, ready to hand it down to his surviving son Chris. At the same time, Joe’s wife Kate is still waiting for their eldest son Larry to return from war, determined that he is alive and will marry the former girl-next-door, Ann –the daughter of Joe’s former business partner who is sitting in prison, punished for Joe’s crimes. To complicate this family drama, Chris and Ann are in love and want to get married. In All My Sons, Arthur Miller creates a post-war American family in a tragic downfall of lies, greed, love, and loss, and demands its audience examine their own social responsibilities to all the sons of American wars.
Fiddler on the Roof (1987)
When Tevye’s eldest daughter, Tzeitel, begs him to let her marry a poor tailor rather than the middle-aged butcher that he has already chosen for her, Tevye must choose between his own daughter’s happiness and those beloved traditions that keep the outside world at bay. Meanwhile, there are other forces at work in Anatevka, dangerous forces which threaten to destroy the very life he is trying to preserve.
Fiddler on the Roof 1987 
Fiddler on the Roof 1987 
Fiddler on the Roof 1987 
“You can have a fine conversation with the man if you talk about kidney and livers…” 
The Real Inspector Hound
It is a foggy and foreboding day at Muldoon Manor. This charming, but isolated, English country house is populated by tortured and suspicious characters. A game of bridge results in raised temperatures and veiled threats; a mysterious man, possibly mad, shows up to charm the lady of the house and her young friend; and a dead body lies under the sofa, waiting to be discovered. All the while, a pair of pretentious critics comment on the action, munch chocolates, complain bitterly about their professional rivals, and ogle the attractive actresses. In The Real Inspector Hound, Tony and Academy award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard has crafted a witty, surreal, and compelling tale in which identity is as changeable as a moustache, or a pair of boots, and a hack production of a tired whodunnit can be the cover for a masterful revenge plot, trained on the professional members of the audience.
Evita
Evita is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics and book by Tim Rice. It concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita’s early life, rise to power, charity work, and eventual death.
Cast
Eva: Lisa Ericksen
Che: Matthew Dentino
Peron: Bob Brunner
Peron’s Mistress: Kathy McGrew
Magaldi: George Huffman
The Company
Matt Benzing
Nora Ellen Bowers
Kristina Campbell
Mark Ericksen
Jerry Fairall
Beth Hartle
Diana Hicks
Jim Malott
Nicole McLain
Terry McNeer
David Meredith
Maureen Nimis
Todd Noris
Joanne Reisman
Karl Schilling
John Vanek
Barry Zaslow
The Children
Angie Abney
Joe Bowers
Benjamin Heckert
Marcia Hendricksen
Suzanne McGrew
John Nimis
Sara Nimis
Ryan Olcott
Erin Schilling
William Thompson
Our Town
Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thornton Wilder began his storied career as a novelist before branching out to short stories, screenplays, and dramatic works. At first glance, his play Our Town appears to be a simple, innocuous portrait of life in the small New Hampshire town of Grover’s Corners. But as time passes in the three acts—an ordinary day, a wedding, a death—the play builds to a soaring exploration of human existence: its boundless trials, joys, questions, certainties. This play “is one of the great democratic products of American literature. It gives you the sense that the same profound and horrible truths hold true whether you’re a sophisticate in Paris or a farmer in Grover’s Corners” (acclaimed writer Tom Perrotta in the Atlantic).
The Dining Room
The play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions. The action is a mosaic of interrelated scenes—some funny, some touching, some rueful—which, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. The actors change roles, personalities and ages with virtuoso skill as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids. Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events; a father lectures his son on grammar and politics; a boy returns from boarding school to discover his mother’s infidelity; a senile grandmother doesn’t recognize her own sons at Thanksgiving dinner; a daughter, her marriage a shambles, pleads futilely to return home, etc. Dovetailing swiftly and smoothly, the varied scenes coalesce, ultimately, into a theatrical experience of exceptional range, compassionate humor and abundant humanity.
6 RMS RIV VU
6 Rms Riv Vu derives its title from shorthand used by real estate agents in classified advertising. In this case, a six-room apartment with a view of the Hudson River, located on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive, serves as the comedy-drama’s setting. Paul Friedman is a married advertising copywriter, Anne Miller is a discontented housewife, and the two meet when they respond to a listing in The New York Times for the available unit. They discover the door has been locked accidentally, trapping them inside, and a connection slowly develops as they begin to share the details of their respective lives.
Thank you for a great 2025-26 season!
Thank you to all of our donors, volunteers, and patrons for helping us present another successful season! Check back in August for the announcement of our 2026-27 season! Which of our amazing productions... READ MORE
Become an OxACT Supporter!
We count on the generosity of our community as we continue to provide a wonderful training ground for actors, directors, and those most valuable behind-the-scene crews. It takes a lot to put on... READ MORE
Founding Patrons
These are the names of the founding patrons of the Oxford Area Community Theater. Without their faith in the future of community theater in our town, we wouldn’t be here. Susan Braunig Bill... READ MORE
Timeline of the Creation of the Oxford Community Arts Center
The following is a summary of the progression of events and financial decisions as recorded in the OxACT meeting minutes and treasurer’s reports from August, 1997 to March, 1999, in regards to the... READ MORE