WAITING FOR GODOT To Be Performed As Fundraiser For Canon Shakespeare Company

Artists from four of Portland's theater companies are coming together to mount a fully staged production of Samuel Beckett's seminal Waiting for Godot as a fundraiser for The Canon Shakespeare Company. 

A 'tragicomedy' and an icon of the absurdist theater movement, Waiting for Godot has famously been described as “the play about nothing.” Published in 1954, it remains one of Beckett's best-known works. Two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend their days waiting for Godot, whose long-promised but unfulfilled arrival will bring them the answer to all their troubles. The pair pass the time waiting with philosophical and religious musings, and encounters with a handful of other characters. Waiting for Godot is considered one of the foundational works of modern theater.

Ira Kortum, Artistic Director of The Canon Shakespeare Company, will play Estragon, with Vladimir played by Paul Roder, Prop Department Lead at Twilight Theatre Company. Tony Domingue plays Pozzo, Preston Black is Lucky, and 'the boy' is played by Alex Sotiriadi, the son of Olga Sotiriadi, founder of Scarlet Sails, a Russian-speaking cultural space in Portland. Alacias Enger, Artistic Director and cofounder of Third Eye Theatre, directs. Rebecca Dow designs costumes, and Mojo McCoy provides lighting design and stage manages; Christina Kortum handles set design and construction.

While Portland at one time had a long history of collaborative or 'sister' theater companies, those mutually supportive relationships have mostly disappeared as various companies have closed or moved on. The team behind Waiting for Godot hopes to revive some of that cooperative community spirit by encouraging artists to support one another on both individual and organizational levels.

Waiting for Godot will perform August 6 through 23 at The Wyrd Hut in Portland. Tickets ($25) are available at www.bit.ly/4w7NIrJ or at the door for any show. Seats are first come, first served.

More Information About The Theatre Companies

The Canon Shakespeare Company was founded in 2019 and presented its inaugural production of Hamlet with one of its founders directing while performing the title role. Other productions followed, including a pandemic-era, video-only, tongue-in-cheek sock puppet Titus Andronicus called Titus Andarnicus. Other productions have included concurrent performances of Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, outdoor productions of The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged and Twelfth Night, and most recently Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Its mission is to enrich, educate and entertain the community through any and all things Shakespeare; and to unite the community through Shakespeare’s works, celebrating humanity in all its forms and connecting people with stories everyone can relate to.

Third Eye Theatre, founded in 2006, is a Portland, Oregon-based theater company with a longstanding history of new play development and artistic collaboration. Third Eye Theatre is also the producing entity behind the Portland Pride Play Festival, an annual celebration of LGBTQIA+ works, one of which goes on for further development in their Queer Voices, New Play Development Program.

Twilight Theatre Company has been part of the Portland live theater scene since 2014. Founded with the concept “theatre with edge,” the Kenton neighborhood company aimed to take more risks and challenge audiences more than a typical community theater. Functioning as both a producing theater and a rental space for other companies, Twilight presents between six and eight productions a year, ranging from the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street to Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche to Antigone to Equus.

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