WAITING FOR GODOT

Samuel Beckett was born on April 13, 1906, in Foxrock, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (where Oscar Wilde had gone decades earlier), where he demonstrated great prowess as a cricketer. In 1923, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1927 with a BA in French and Italian. He taught for a while at Campbell College in Belfast, then left Ireland to take up a position as an English teacher in Paris. There he was introduced to fellow Irishman James Joyce, whose novel Ulysses had been published in 1922, and began helping him with research for what would be his last novel, Finnegans Wake.

Beckett made his print debut in 1929 with a short story named "Assumption," which appeared in the avant-garde periodical transition, and as one of the contributors to a book of essays on Joyce. In 1930 he published the poem Whoroscope and began lecturing at his alma mater, Trinity College, but resigned the following year after publishing a book on Marcel Proust. He spent time in London, France and Germany completing his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, in 1932 - though it did not find a publisher until after his death. He did succeed in publishing a collection of short stories, More Pricks Than Kicks, in 1933, following it with a book of poems, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates, in 1935.

In a bizarre incident in Paris in January 1938, Beckett was accosted by a pimp named Prudent, who stabbed him in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. He was visited in hospital by Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil, a young woman he had met earlier, and a close relationship ensued, though the couple did not marry until 1961.

When the Nazis invaded France in June 1940, Beckett and Suzanne remained in Paris and joined the French Resistance. When their group was betrayed in August 1942, they were forced to flee the Gestapo, finding refuge in the village of Roussillon in the unoccupied portion of France under the Vichy government. For two years, Beckett worked as a farm labourer, though he also wrote another novel, Watt, and continued his resistance work by less direct means. Awarded the Croix de Guerre by General de Gaulle, he returned to Paris after the war and spent two years - 1945 and 1946 - working as a storekeeper and interpreter with the Irish Red Cross Hospital at St. Lô.

Beckett wrote a memorable trilogy of novels - Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnameable (1953). His first play to be produced has remained his most famous: En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot), which made its debut - in French - at a small theatre in Paris on January 5, 1953. The English version opened in London two years later. Krapp's Last Tape appeared in 1960. Beckett's other plays include Endgame (1958) and Happy Days (1961). In 1969, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature but did not attend the ceremony. He published his last play, Catastrophe, in 1983 and died of a respiratory ailment in Paris, only a few months after his wife, on December 22, 1989.

(she/her)

Birmingham Conservatory, 1999

2026: Director of Waiting for Godot. Third season. Stratford: Director of Hedda Gabler, actor in Hamlet, As You Like It, Titus Andronicus. Elsewhere: Directing: Prince Caspian, A Christmas Carol 2018-2022, Hello Out There (Shaw Festival); Peter Pan, The Little Prince (Yellow Door Theatre Project). Assistant directing: Saint Joan, Middletown (Shaw Festival). Acting: Molly has worked for Soulpepper Theatre, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Young People's Theatre and Tarragon Theatre. Film/TV:It, It Chapter Two, Nurses, Road to Avonlea, Murdoch Mysteries, Law and Order Toronto, Hudson & Rex. Training: National Theatre School, Birmingham Conservatory 1999. Et cetera: Love always to my boys - Holden, Tennyson and Gray.

2026: Set and costume designer of Waiting for Godot and costume designer of The Importance of Being Earnest. Stratford debut.

(he/him)

2026: Lighting designer of Waiting for Godot. Ninth season. Stratford: Sense and Sensibility, Every Little Nookie. Born in Singapore, Jareth is a stage designer now based in Toronto by way of Calgary. He has a love for new work that examines identity politics, culture and heritage. In addition to his artistic practice, he is a stagecraft instructor at York University. He believes strongly in mentorship and creating opportunities for upcoming generations of designers. Select design credits: Vinyl Café, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Frozen, Jersey Boys (Citadel Theatre); A Christmas Story: The Musical, Pollyanna, The Hours That Remain (Theatre Aquarius); The Last Timbit (GUT Creative); The Orphan of Chao, Prince Caspian (Shaw Festival); The Home Project, The Wolves (The Howland Company); Grease (Drayton Entertainment). Online: @jareth.li.

2026: Fight and intimacy director of the 2026 season. Ninth season. Fight and intimacy director (selected): Moonlight Schooner, Robin Hood, Slave Play, Fat Ham, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hamlet, Fairview (CanStage); The Comeuppance, The Welkin, WildWoman, Three Sisters (Soulpepper); Groundhog Day (YES); CRAZE (Tarragon); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Perchance); The Bidding War, Wights, Bad Roads, Prodigal (Crow's); The Green Line, Roberto Zucco, Angels in America (Buddies in Bad Times); Jesus Christ Superstar (Here for Now); Hamlet (The Rose); Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes (TIP); Fall on Your Knees (CanStage/NAC). Stunt performer/actor credits (selected): Copenhagen, Twisted Metal S2, Law & Order: Toronto, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, The Boys, Handmaid's Tale. Upcoming theatre projects: Witch (Soulpepper). Online: anitanittoly.com.

(she/her)

2026: Assistant set, props and costume designer of Waiting for Godot. Design coordinator at the Stratford Festival. Fifth season. Stratford: Head of wardrobe for the 2024 season, assistant costume designer for Rent (2023), costume stitcher (2009). Elsewhere: Costume design for The Shape of Home: Songs in Search of Al Purdy (County Stage/Crow's); Outside Mullingar, A Beautiful View, The Drawer Boy, Mary's Wedding, Stones in His Pockets, A Midsummer Night's Dream (County Stage); Mules (Theatrefront); Hairspray, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Divas Do It All (Sharon Playhouse); and beyond. Film/TV: IATSE 873 Costume Member. Training: George Brown College. Et cetera: With love and gratitude, always, to family, friends, fellow creators and most of all, John.

2026: Assistant lighting designer of Waiting for Godot, Guys and Dolls and Something Rotten! Fifth season.