Elizabeth Anne "Libby" Skala (April 20, 1967 – December 1, 2019) was an American actress and writer best known for plays about her

Austrian-American Austrian Americans (, ) are Americans of Austrian descent, chiefly German-speaking Catholics and Jews. According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 735,128 Americans of full or partial Austrian descent, accounting for 0.3% of the population. The ...

relatives. She wrote four one-woman shows: ''Lilia!'', ''A Time to Dance'', ''Felicitas'', and ''Irena Sendler: Rescuing the Rescuer'', which she performed across North America and Europe.

Biography

Early life and education

Elizabeth Anne Skala was the eldest daughter of Mary and Martin Skala, a Canadian

textile designer Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

and Austrian-born financial writer for ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

''."Obituary: Martin Skala, longtime Darien resident,"
''Darien Times'' (January 22, 2019). Her father's mother was Austrian-American actress

Lilia Skala Lilia Skala (née Sofer; 28 November 1896 – 18 December 1994) was an Austrian-American architect and actress known for her role in the film '' Lilies of the Field'' (1963), for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination ...

. Libby Skala was born in

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from por ...

, and moved to

Darien, Connecticut Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any ...

, with her parents and her younger sister Emily when she was nine. After graduating from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

(also her father's alma mater) with a degree in English Literature/Theatre Emphasis, and attending

cattle call An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performer. It typically involves the performer displaying their talent through a previously memorized and rehearsed solo piece or by performing a work or piece g ...

s in New York, Skala moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

where she earned her union cards and studied with

Gary Austin Gary Austin (born Gary Moore; October 18, 1941 – April 1, 2017) was an American improvisational theatre teacher, writer, and director who founded The Groundlings theatre company in 1974. Early life Austin grew up in the Nazarene Church and i ...

, founder of the improvisational theatre company

The Groundlings The Groundlings is an American improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school based in Los Angeles. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin, whose improvisational theater techniques ...

Career

In 1995, months after her grandmother

's death, Gary Austin encouraged Skala to write a one-woman show about her

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated actress grandmother. The show ''Lilia!'' was developed in Austin's workshop and went on to receive rave reviews internationally. It ran successfully

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

at the Arclight Theatre, produced by Mirror Repertory Company; at

Theatre in Los Angeles (presented by Gary Austin); at Pacific Theatre in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

; at the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

in Scotland; in London, sponsored by the

Austrian Cultural Forum An Austrian Cultural Forum is an agency of the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, whose task consists of the cultural and scientific dialogue with artists and scientists of each particular host country. A Cultural forum focuse ...

; in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...

, Georgia; and in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, Germany. Skala's second play ''A Time to Dance'' won "Best Solo Performer Award" at the London Fringe Theatre Festival. It portrays the story of Skala's great aunt Elizabeth "Lisl" Polk, a pioneer of

dance therapy Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA/ Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creativ ...

, and is based on a series of interviews recorded while Skala was researching ''Lilia!''. The play toured North America and Europe. Libby Skala collaborated with her husband, musician Steven May, to create her third show, ''Felicitas'', which was premiered at the

New York International Fringe Festival The New York International Fringe Festival, or FringeNYC, was a fringe theater festival and one of the largest multi-arts events in North America. It took place over the course of a few weeks in October, spread on more than 20 stages across sev ...

in 2014. May created the

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

music score which he performs live on stage to underscore Skala's story of her great-aunt, Felicitas Sofer, a highly trained professional baby nurse who migrated from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

to join her sisters

Lilia Lilia (Latin plural, meaning "lilies" in English; singular, ''lilium'') are pit traps arranged in a quincunx A quincunx () is a geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a square or rectangle a ...

and Lisl in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. She was the nurse in attendance at Skala's

home birth A home birth is a birth that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birthing center. They may be attended by a midwife, or lay attendant with experience in managing home births. Home birth was, until the advent of modern medic ...

. Libby Skala's show, '' Irena Sendler: Rescuing the Rescuer'', premiered at the London Fringe Theatre Festival in 2017.

Personal life and death

Skala married musician Steven May in 2008. Libby Skala died on December 1, 2019, at the age of 52."In Memorium,"
''SAG-AFTRA'' magazine (Spring 2020).

Honors

In 2013, the

Sunnyside Gardens Sunnyside Gardens is a community within Sunnyside, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The area was the first development in the United States patterned after the ideas of the garden city movement initiated in England in the f ...

Historical Alliance presented ''Lilia!'' in conjunction with the unveiling of a

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Plaque on the former home of Skala's grandmother

, Stage and Screen Actor, for which Sidney Poitier wrote a tribute. A month earlier, Skala performed ''A Time to Dance'' for

Historical Alliance in honor of a

Plaque unveiling at the home of her great aunt,

pioneer Elizabeth "Lisl" Polk.

Work

Theatre

* 1999 ''Lilia!'' * 2007 ''A Time to Dance'' * 2014 ''Felicitas'' * 2017 ''

Irena Sendler Irena Stanisława Sendler (), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, ''nom de guerre'' Jolanta (15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008), was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resista ...

: Rescuing the Rescuer''

Filmography

References

External links

* * * Skala, Libby
"IRENA SENDLER: RESCUING THE RESCUER at Freight & Salvage, Sat, 10/7: A solo show about the social worker who rescued 2,500 Jewish children during WWII and the Kansas students who introduced her to the world,"
''Patch (Berkeley, CA)'' (Sep 26, 2017). {{DEFAULTSORT:Skala, Libby American women dramatists and playwrights American people of Canadian descent American people of Austrian-Jewish descent American stage actresses Writers from Englewood, New Jersey Actresses from Englewood, New Jersey 1967 births 2019 deaths 21st-century American women