Fresh Take on Godot Set at a Post-Katrina Crossroads

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 29, 2009

RICHMOND, Ind. — The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot takes the Goddard Auditorium stage on the Earlham College campus on Saturday, October 10.

After a critically praised New York run in 2006, and a subsequent New Orleans presentation in the Lower Ninth Ward in 2007, the restaged Beckett masterpiece begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the Artists and Lecture Series event are $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens. Tickets are available by calling Earlham’s Office of Events at 765/983-1373.

Director Christopher McElroen resets Beckett’s masterpiece about two tramps stranded in time and waiting for someone or something and places them at a post-Katrina crossroads. The set transforms the Goddard stage into a scene from New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward.

The tramps remember that they are supposed to wait under a tree on a Saturday for a man named Godot; they do not remember the man very well, but they think he was going to give them an important answer to a question they have forgotten. 

Mixing vaudeville and hip-hop to reveal the tale’s comedy, this Godot dazzles with the darkness of a moral emergency and the humor of the human condition.

This tragicomedy in two acts promises “a powerful immediacy, fully realizing the agony of waiting, as well as the irrepressibility of humanity, imagination and humor in a production Beckett himself would surely have admired.”

Beckett is credited with revolutionizing 20^th century theatre with Waiting for Godot, which premiered in 1953 and had a profound influence on generations of succeeding dramatists.

The cast features Billy Eugene Jones as Vladimir, Obie winner J. Kyle Manzay as Estragon and Glenn Gordon as Lucky.

The presentation is co-sponsored by the Holiday Inn of Richmond.

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Ticket and Parking Information

Contact:
Mark Blackmon, director of media relations
765/983-1256 — E-Mail Mark