Arts on the Waterfront Stages WAITING FOR GODOT, Now thru 9/1

Arts on the Waterfront returns for a second year with an innovative outdoor production of Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT. Touching on themes of homelessness, uncertainty, and generational disconnect, the play is given fresh immediacy in this insightful and humorous production. Samuel Beckett's groundbreaking classic is transported to the bustling pier of Waterfront Park. Between the aquarium and the Seattle Great Wheel, Vladimir and Estragon fight, play, ponder and wait. The young, urban production turns the conventions of storytelling upside down with this edgy retelling using Puget Sound, the sunset, and the Pier as the backdrop for one of the most famous plays of the last century.

Artwork by local artists and homeless youth that touches upon the themes of the play will be displayed before and after the show. This multi-media event featuring theatre, live music and visual art, brings the Seattle Waterfront to life and harkens back to the historic Summer Nights at the Pier concert series of a decade ago. Admission is free.

Arts on the Waterfront is a project created by recent UW grads. Their aim is to bring free, inventive theater to frequent and first-time theatre-goers alike, including the homeless, in the heart of downtown Seattle. All donations received at the shows will be donated to the teen homelessness organization, Teen Feed. Arts on the Waterfront feels that great plays and literature brought to life on stage should be available to everyone, and that classics like WAITING FOR GODOT can speak to the issues of our time.

Jay Myers, who plays Vladimir in the play, explained the relevance of the play to his own life: "After losing the harbor of a school system in exchange for a degree last year, my life's changes have taken some getting used to. Disillusioned, directionless, and desperate I've been wandering around trying to rediscover who I am and what I am doing. In my adolescent bliss, I had been under the impression that grownups knew what was going on, and once I became a certified adult I would be let in on the secret to life. Rather anticlimactically, I'm coming to the conclusion that nobody really has any idea what he or she is doing. We are all just trying to get by doing the best we can. That is why this project is so important to me. We are all waiting for something, often with nothing but hope holding us together. Whether it is a college degree, a place to sleep, a proposal, a job, validation, salvation, a paycheck, or a man named Godot. Under a lone tree, at a desolate crossroads, the characters in Waiting for Godot have me asking myself, "What am I waiting for? Should stay here a bit longer? Or should I test an unknown road?"

After a successful and critically acclaimed production of ROMEO AND JULIET last year, Arts on the Waterfront is getting ready for another exciting summer of free, innovative theatre.

WAITING FOR GODOT shows tonight to Sunday August 16-September 1 at 7:00pm at Waterfront Park. Admission is free, and all donations go to Teen Feed. More info at www.artsonthewaterfront.com.

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