The Seat of Our Pants – 08 November 2025

The Seat of Our Pants, a musical based on Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, shines in its witty comedic writing, brilliantly precise stage direction, and firm commitment to embodying the story’s purpose. It stands out as unique in today’s New York City theatre scene. The musical is wacky and fun, but also deeply principled and grounded in very serious ideas about humanity and the end of the world. Outrageous moments flirt with moments of outrage in an almost dancelike quality, as Ethan Lipton’s intentional writing asserts that just as humanity has the power to destroy the world, so too does humanity have the power to create anew.

The Seat of Our Pants takes place in three different versions of the end of the world—one by iceberg, one by flood, and one by war. Each story could be self contained, yet actors deliberately take on the same roles and have character arcs within each piece and within The Seat of Our Pants as a whole. The show at times breaks the fourth wall and has built in moments that comment on the imperfections of The Skin of our Teeth, as well as the parts that don’t hold up well. For example, Sabina (Micaela Diamond)’s discomfort with seducing Mr. Antrobus (Shuler Hensley) turns into a full on, entire cast stage fight centered around everyone having some discomfort with the way their part is written. In a show about solidarity or lack thereof in the face of the end of the world, this acknowledgment of communal discomfort with what is being asked of humanity as individuals and a collective is intentional and powerful (while also holding space for silly string, feathers, and shaving cream).

The star-studded cast shines, particularly Micaela Diamond (Sabina), Ruthie Ann Miles (Mrs. Antrobus), Ally Bonino (Miss E. Muse, Fortune Teller, Animal), Amina Faye (Gladys Antrobus), and Damon Daunno (Henry Antrobus). Musically, the show crosses genre a bit and plays with contrast as the audience is transported to different worlds. The boldest number belonged to Damon Daunno, who magnificently performed a defiant piece of angry rock music, “Cursed with Urges”, amidst a more musical theatre/folk inclined score. The full orchestrations were beautiful, though it would have been nice to hear more vocal harmonies at times. In particular, the chilling end to act one, “Into the Darkness” could have used a vocal harmony towards the end in order to leave the audience with a stronger emotional response going into intermission.

It’s a rare show that demands I write about the intermission. Between acts one and two, a large stage crew came on and completely transformed the space while the house light were up for the audience to take a breath; a similar though slightly smaller scale transformation took place between act two and act three, but the audience sat in darkness, watching. These transformations could easily have been automated (or partially automated), yet a choice was made to have the audience see human beings creating and transforming the world after each time the primary cast members survived a partial ending of the world. The band members discreetly changed costumes, symbolically showing that the same humans could appear in each new world and that humanity persists and doesn’t always learn the intended lessons from each near death experience.

The Seat of Our Pants depicts comedy and self awareness as key necessities to human resilience, and challenges the audience to think about why certain things are funny and others are not. It’s a unique and highly commendable production in the way it crosses genres and dares to take on serious fears with laughter, holding space for both realism and surrealism. The level of talent across the board is upper echelon, and well worth the price of admission.

I attended this performance on a press pass from The Public Theater Press Team.