The wait begins! Two-time Tony Award nominee and multiple Olivier Award winner Jamie Lloyd returns to Broadway with a new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. This marks Lloyd's first Broadway project since his acclaimed revival of Sunset Blvd. opened in late 2024.
This is not Reeves and Winters' first project together. The pair has a friendship that spans 35 years and began during the filming of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989.
Waiting for Godot is a landmark play by Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1953. It is a quintessential example of absurdist theater, exploring themes of existentialism, meaninglessness, and the human condition. The play revolves around two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who spend their days waiting for a mysterious figure named Godot. Godot never arrives, leaving the pair in a perpetual state of uncertainty and inaction.
The minimalist setting—a barren landscape with a single tree—reflects the stark simplicity of the play's themes, while the characters' repetitive dialogue and absurd actions underscore the futility of their wait. Beckett’s work challenges traditional narrative structures, focusing instead on the absurdity of human existence and the struggle to find purpose in a seemingly indifferent universe.
The play is open to various interpretations, making it a cornerstone of modern theater and philosophy. Some view Godot as a metaphor for hope, faith, or a higher power, while others interpret the play as a commentary on the cyclical nature of life and the inevitability of death. Despite its somber themes, Waiting for Godot contains moments of humor, often derived from the characters’ interactions and wordplay, which provide relief from the existential weight of the story.
Beckett’s groundbreaking approach to storytelling has cemented the play as a timeless work that continues to provoke thought and discussion among audiences and scholars worldwide.
For a play that’s famous for the lack of progress its characters make, Waiting for Godot has succeeded in bringing an awful lot of A-list names to the New York stage. The latest to take on Samuel Beckett’s co-dependent hobos, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, have teamed up in the past on film—perhaps most notably, and most appropriately in this case, as the central duo in the Bill & Ted franchise. The real star of this new Broadway revival, however, is the set. British designer Soutra Gilmour, a frequent collaborator of the director, Jamie Lloyd, has fashioned a stark, stunning, semi-spherical structure that seems to take us inside a tunnel of sorts. Or is it a drainage pipe? Or, just maybe, an enormous tree—since Lloyd has opted not to physically represent that object, which is mentioned repeatedly and used symbolically in the work.
While the stars bring marquee magnetism, the production design lends mystery. The script’s stage directions call for “A country road. A tree. Evening.” Soutra Gilmour’s set features only a huge wood-paneled tube. Is it a hollow redwood? Arty tunnel to nowhere? Crafty storm drain? Who knows. But the circular shape squares with the play’s cyclical nature. Didi and Gogo gab and grouse. They wait for no-show Godot. Repeat.
| 1956 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1957 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1971 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1981 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 1988 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2005 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2006 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2009 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
| 2010 | West End |
Return Engagement [West End] West End |
| 2013 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
| 2015 | Off-Broadway |
Gare St Lazare Ireland and Dublin Theatre Festival Production Off-Broadway |
| 2017 | West End |
Arts Theatre Revival West End |
| 2021 | Off-Broadway |
TFANA's Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2023 | Off-Broadway |
Theatre for a New Audience Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| West End |
West End |
|
| West End |
West End |
|
| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Videos