Background
Antanas Škėma was born on November 29, 1910 (according to his birth certificate in 1911) in Łódź, Poland where his father was sent to work as a teacher.
Antanas Škėma was born on November 29, 1910 (according to his birth certificate in 1911) in Łódź, Poland where his father was sent to work as a teacher.
He attended high schools in Radviliškis and Kaunas.
His best known work is the novel The White Shroud (Balta drobulė). In 1921, they all came back to Lithuania. In 1929, he entered the University of Lithuania medical faculty, but in 1931 he transferred his studies to the Faculty of Law.
At the time university was renamed to Vytautas Magnus University.
In 1935 he entered the theater studio directed by V.Sipavičius-Fedotas. While attending the studio he was also accepted to the Lithuanian State Theatre in Kaunas – in 1936, Škėma started acting on Lithuania"s greatest stage.
From 1940 to 1944 he did work in Vilnius State Theater, at first as an actor, and later as a director Škėma had parts in nearly every play of that time.
In 1944, he left Lithuania for Germany, where he was involved in some artistic work with Lithuanian troupes, primarily in DP camps.
In 1949, Škėma left Europe for United States of America, and actively joined Lithuanian exile cultural and theatrical activities. He acted at the Chicago Theater and also in Boston"s Drama Group performances. In 1960–1961 he worked in the editorial office of Vienybė newspaper.
In addition, he was lecturing, writing and printing articles about theater and literature in several publications.
Antanas Škėma died in a car accident in Pennsylvania on August 11, 1961.