CHICAGO — Signal Ensemble Theatre is pleased to continue its second season with Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy, WAITING FOR GODOT. Directed by Ronan Marra, the production will be staged in the studio at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division Ave., Chicago, 60622. Performances begin Jan. 13, and run through Feb. 20, 2005. Opening night is Jan. 15 at 8:00 p.m. General admission tickets are $15, with discounts for seniors and students ($10), and can be purchased online at signalensemble.com or reserved by telephone at (773) 347-1350.

Widely acclaimed as a seminal masterwork of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT is at once a vaudevillian farce and a heartrending expression of our fear of uncertainty. Also a study of intimate relationships in all their comfortable and irritating glory, it illustrates our need for companionship, our want of understanding, and our desperate hope that something good is waiting for us.

WAITING FOR GODOT was Samuel Beckett’s first professionally produced play. It opened in Paris in 1953 and has since become a cornerstone of modern theater. In it, two seemingly vagrant men, Estragon and Vladimir, are waiting to keep an appointment with someone named Godot. During a seemingly interminable cycle of days and nights blending together, the two longtime friends do anything to pass the time: they play word games, bicker, laugh, and muse on the Bible and the chance of God seeing them. The only figures they encounter are Pozzo, his slave Lucky, and a boy.

Rather than highlighting, but not ignoring, the play’s well-known elements of clowning and absurdism, Signal’s production, featuring a younger ensemble, focuses on the characters’ friendship and humanity. Setting the piece right where Beckett wished it, on a road with a tree, Signal continues its mission to let the words lead the way through ensemble-based collaboration and performance.

Signal General Artistic Director Ronan Marra directs the production. For Signal he directed Much Ado About Nothing and his own Learning to Fly last season. Marra also directed Learning to Fly in New York, as well as Say Goodnight Gracie, The Swan, and The Messiah. As a playwright, his plays have received productions every year since 1997. Originally a one-act, Learning to Fly has been mounted at theaters in New York City, Cleveland, and Chicago at the Bailiwick. The play won first place at ITN Theatre’s one-act competition in NYC, and scored second at New York University’s Neverland Productions one-act contest. Marra has been seen onstage in Chicago in First Folio's Twelfth Night and Chase Park's Life Is a Dream and Hamlet.

Samuel Beckett (Author) was born in Dublin in 1906 and graduated from Trinity College. He spent most of his life in Paris, where he died in 1989. Originally written in French, WAITING FOR GODOT (En Attendant Godot) was translated into English by Beckett. One of the most celebrated authors of the 20th century, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His other plays include End Game, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Happy Days. He is the author of several novels including Murphy, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.

WAITING FOR GODOT features Signal Ensemble members Christopher Prentice (Estragon), Aaron Snook (Vladimir), Charles R. Schoenherr (Lucky), and Joseph Stearns (Pozzo); with Benton Reynolds (Boy).

The Design/Production team for WAITING FOR GODOT includes Nancy Freeman (setting), Laura M. Dana (costumes), Julie Ballard (lighting), Lara Maerz (props), David Blixt (violence), and Anthony Ingram (assistant director/stage manager). Ronan Marra, Joseph Stearns, and Christopher Prentice are the producers.

Productions Plus is the exclusive production sponsor for WAITING FOR GODOT. This play is produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Performers’ Bios
Christopher Prentice (Estragon) was seen in Signal productions of Catch-22 and Much Ado About Nothing. Chicago credits include John Wilkes Booth in Assassins (Boxer Rebellion), and Jaques in As You Like It (Velvet Willies) and the title roles in Hamlet (Chase Park), and Picasso at the Lapin Agile (New Leaf). Prentice has also acted with the American Players Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Dallas Theater Center, Illinois Shakes, Next Theatre, and performs school shows with First Folio. He holds a B.F.A. from Southern Methodist University. Signal Ensemble Member

Benton Reynolds (Boy) has appeared in A Christmas Carol (Provision Theater), Seussical and The Music Man (Circle Theatre), The Future of Sound (Lookingglass), Prairie Lights (Stage Left), Bye Bye Birdie and Fiddler on the Roof (Only A Stage).

Charles Schoenherr (Lucky) played Don John in Signal’s Much Ado About Nothing. Also a member of A Crew of Patches, he appears in Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night. He has also worked with Milwaukee Rep, Rising Moon Theatre, and the International Theater of Chicago. He holds a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois. Signal Ensemble Member

Aaron Snook (Vladimir) appeared in Signal’s Catch-22 and Much Ado About Nothing. Snook also acted in the Jeff Award-winning Only the Sound at Chicago Dramatists, The Red Address with Footprint on the Sun (LA), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Camden Shakespeare Company (Maine). He is a graduate of Duke University with a double major in drama and English and has spent a summer studying with ACT in San Francisco. Signal Ensemble Member

Joseph Stearns (Pozzo) appeared in Signal’s Catch-22, Much Ado About Nothing, and Learning to Fly. Stearns acted in and composed music for As You Like It, A Midsummer Nights Dreame, The Comedy of Errors, and The Only Love Gods with the Velvet Willies. He is a graduate of Columbia College. Signal Ensemble Member

About Signal Ensemble Theatre, NFP
While producing a diverse slate of plays, Signal Ensemble Theatre uses the actor as focal point to clearly present the playwright's vision. Signal's second season began with the critically acclaimed production of Catch-22 at the Chopin Theatre.

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