Black girls know a factor or two about existential crises, and Amina Faye is lending her skills to the stage to place a face to the notion.
Within the adaptation of Thorton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, The Pores and skin of Our Enamel, Faye stars within the The Seat of Our Pants, a brand new musical about age-old issues that, in accordance with an official synopsis, inform the “twisting, typically absurd story of the Antrobus household, who’ve been alive for five,000 years however reside in the identical existential dread as the remainder of us. Mired within the sizzling mess of their on a regular basis worries, the Antrobuses survive all method of catastrophes in an limitless quest to start once more, and once more, and once more.”
The Seat of Our Pants, directed by Tony nominee Leigh Silverman, and choreographed by Sunny Min-Sook Hitt, formally opens at The Public’s Newman Theater on Thursday, Nov. 13. It would run till Sunday, Nov. 30.
“It’s inherent,” Faye instructed Madamenoire, when requested how she tapped into her personal understanding of resilience and survival to carry her character to life within the manufacturing.
“Typically, it’s not even premeditated,” she added. “It’s actually like in our DNA. It’s in our ancestry. It’s how I’ve recognized my mother and grandma, and, you realize, all of the sturdy girls in my life to be. We’re resilient, and that’s why we have a tendency to have the ability to tackle a number of the heaviest masses on this world, as a result of we’re constructed for it. It’s so inherent. “ It’s not even one thing that I’ve to essentially conjure up. Whilst an actor, a Black lady, a darkish skinned Black lady at that, on this business that I’ve chosen to tackle. It’s one thing that I’m constructed for, as a result of it’s been one thing that’s simply in my DNA.”
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Why Black Ladies Are Recognized To Simply ‘Stuff It Down.’
![[EXCLUSIVE] 'The Seat Of Our Pants' Star Amina Faye Shares Resilience Strategies For Existential Crises](https://madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/11/17628201852491.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C683px)
Faye, who portrays Gladys Antrobus, has at all times been instructed to basically disguise the load, because of her mom, portrayed by Ruthie Ann Miles. The truth is, Faye remembers a track from the play that encapsulates all of it.
“Within the present, my mother has this complete track referred to as ‘Stuff It Down,’ proper? She has this complete factor the place she’s like, ‘It doesn’t matter what’s happening, I preserve my household collectively. I don’t present any weak spot,’ which I can personally relate to,” Faye defined. “ What we see within the play is that the character that’s my dad does one thing actually messed as much as his household, and in that second, we see my mother do what she’s at all times achieved, which is stuff it down.”
She added, “However Gladys will get to say, ‘No. You damage me.’ And that was actually arduous for me as a result of we equate power with, ‘You didn’t get the very best of me,’ and I feel as Black girls, that’s what we do. We’re not allowed to disintegrate. We bought to maintain it going as a result of nobody is throwing a funeral for us, proper? However this character truly will get to say, ‘No. Everyone cease. This man did one thing to me, and it damage me, and I’m gonna let him know what it’s. I’m additionally gonna damage him as a result of he’s gonna see the results of his actions.”
“It’s been so stunning to type of faucet into one thing that I don’t essentially get to faucet into in actual life in any respect, since you’ve bought to maintain going,” stated Faye. “Individuals don’t really feel dangerous for us. SO the truth that this play has arrange my character, who occurs to be a Black lady, she will get to cease the present and present the final word power with vulnerability, which isn’t one thing, once more, that we’re at all times given, or that we at all times see. We at all times see ourselves being sturdy and having sass, however no, she will get to say, ‘You damage me.’ That’s the epitome of power, and I’m so glad that I bought to point out that and that I’m the one character that truthfully will get to do it in that manner.”
As a personality that symbolizes a lot for the Black lady who portrays her, and people who will witness her greatness on the stage, Faye shared a number of ideas from her character on surviving an existential disaster.
Quantity One: Put Your Life Vest On Earlier than You Give It To Anyone Else.
“Okay, that’s primary. What do they are saying on the aircraft? ‘Please put your oxygen masks on earlier than serving to others,’” Faye recalled. “It’s okay to just be sure you’re okay earlier than you give attention to anybody round you.”
