WAITING FOR GODOT

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust announces its spotlight event for fall of 2006:

The Gate Theatre's production of

WAITING FOR GODOT

October 18-22, 2006, at the Byham Theater

PITTSBURGH (April 14, 2006)...The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust announced today its spotlight event of its 2006 fall Trust Presents series, The Gate Theatre's production of Waiting for Godot on October 18-22, 2006, at the Byham Theater. Waiting for Godot features Stephen Brennan (Lucky), Barry McGovern (Vladimir), Johnny Murphy (Estragon) and Alan Stanford (Pozzo). Single tickets will go on sale in August at the Box Office at Theater Square, online at www.pgharts.org, and by calling at (412) 456-6666. For advanced group reservations and discount information, call (412) 471-6930.

Samuel Beckett did not attend the first performance of Waiting for Godot in the tiny Théâtre de Babylone in Paris on January 5, 1953. He need not have been nervous. Waiting for Godot went on to become what it remains today, a modern classic which changed the course of 20th century theatre. With this play Beckett was to join the select company of writers who have created characters who enter the popular imagination, even if Godot himself fails to make an appearance. This is, after all, the play in which, famously, "nothing happens twice."

This production of Waiting for Godot was first produced in 1988 at the request of Samuel Beckett himself. It was he who recommended that Walter Asmus, who had been his assistant director on the famous Schiller Theatre production, direct; and that Louis le Brocquy, the world-renowned Irish artist, design.

The Gate Theatre was founded in 1928 and has since become internationally renowned as one of the most adventurous playhouses in Europe. Under the current artistic directorship of Michael Colgan, the Gate continues to produce and present high quality new and classic drama from Ireland and Europe, both at home and abroad. In 1991, the Gate became the first theatre in the world to present a full retrospective of all 19 of Samuel Beckett's stage plays. The Beckett Festival was a unique tribute to Beckett and his remarkable work. The Festival met with international and critical acclaim when it toured to the Lincoln Center, New York in 1996 and the Barbican Centre, London in 1999. The Gate has toured Waiting for Godot to many other cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Melbourne, Toronto, Seville, Beijing and Shanghai.

Irish playwright, critic and fiction writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was one of the great literary pioneers of the 20th century. His bleak imaginary landscapes examined the incomprehensible reality of humanity through new dramatic and literary forms. Beckett tirelessly explored the human condition in his work and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. Waiting for Godot, probably his best-known work, was written in French in 1949.