Musicals Goddess and The Seat of Our Pants to Open at the Public Theater in 2025

The Public Theater has added two musicals to its 2025 roster: the New York premiere of Goddess, inspired by the African myth of Marimba, opening in spring 2025; and The Seat of Our Pants, a world-premiere adaptation of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, opening in fall 2025. 

Goddess is conceived and directed by Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director Saheem Ali, featuring music and lyrics by Michael Thurber, a book by Tony Award nominee Jocelyn Bioh (Jaja's African Hair Braiding) and choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie. The story follows a mysterious singer who arrives at Moto Moto, a steamy Afro-jazz club in Mombasa, Kenya. She casts an entrancing spell on everyone, including a young man who has returned home from studying in America. Will the big plans for his life—stepping into a political legacy and marrying his fiancée—be upended? Performances will begin in the Newman Theater on April 29, 2025, and will run through June 1 with an official press opening on May 20. 

“When I was in my late teens growing up in Kenya, I dreamt of one day creating an original musical inspired by a myth about the goddess of music,” said Ali in a statement. “Years later, after immigrating to the United States, I gained the courage to pursue this vision." The piece reunites Ali and Bioh, who collaborated on Bioh's play Nollywood Dreams at MCC Theater in 2021. 

The Seat of Our Pants is adapted from Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Skin of Our Teeth (revived on Broadway in 2022), telling the twisting, often absurd story of the Antrobus family who have been alive for 5,000 years but live in the same existential dread as the rest of us. Mired in the hot mess of being alive, the Antrobuses survive all manner of catastrophe in their endless quest to begin again, and again, and again. Ethan Lipton adapts the piece and writes the music and lyrics, with direction by Tony nominee Leigh Silverman. 

“The Skin of Our Teeth blew the roof off Broadway in 1942, hurling it through time and space," said Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder's nephew and spokesperson for the Wilder family. "After a long search for a music-maker for Skin, the stars aligned and led us to Ethan Lipton. ‘Sensibility’ is a difficult word to define, but not where the crazy and timeless genius of the play, Lipton and Silverman’s talents are concerned.”

Click here for more information on the Public Theater's 2024-25 season.