WAITING FOR GODOT Comes To The Coal Mine Theatre

COAL MINE THEATRE will return for their 11th season this September with Nobel Prize-winning Playwright Samuel Beckett's existential masterpiece, WAITING FOR GODOT.   An absurdist play for an absurd time, this new production of WAITING FOR GODOT is on stage at the company's Danforth Theatre September 14th to October 5th (Media night: September 18th).
 
One of the most enduring and essential plays of modern theatre, exploring the fundamental questions of the human experience, the production welcomes back acclaimed director Kelli Fox who led COAL MINE's award-winning production of BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY in 2019.  From that same production, actor Alexander Thomas – who won a Dora Award for Best Performance for his role – will play Vladimir alongside Ted Dykstra's Estragon, joined by Jim Mezon (The Inheritance) as Pozzo, Simon Bracken (The Antipodes) as Lucky, and Kole Parks as The Boy.  It has been over six years since Dykstra last performed at the COAL MINE, in 2019's HAND OF GOD.
 
 “Godot is huge.” shares Dykstra. “The play is unknowable in any quantifiable way, and I love that challenge and the fear it brings up in me. I can't wait to get into the rehearsal room with Alexander Thomas playing Vladimir, and the amazing Kelli Fox who directed Alex in BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY for us with incredible success. Jim and Simon and Kole are the icing on this classical cake.”
 
Fox adds, “When Gogo asks, "We've lost our rights?" Didi responds distinctly, "We got rid of them."  We are living through a moment of tremendous upheaval and uncertainty. The overwhelming fear, and the craving for order and security that arises from volatile times can convince us that our free will, our freedom of thought and choice and movement, are worth trading away for peace of mind; that it is justifiable to make others suffer so that we may know truth from fiction and trust that there is a future worth living for. I think a lot of the world is struggling with those questions right now, and artists are responding.”
 
This current topicality is perhaps why the play is also being mounted on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre this fall, concurrent to the Toronto production, re-uniting Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter from the 1989 comic cult-classic Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Canada's prestigious Stratford Festival also just announced a production of the play in the 2026 edition.
 
Written in 1953 by Beckett, In WAITING FOR GODOT, two wandering tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait by a lonely tree, to meet up with Mr. Godot, an enigmatic figure in a world where time, place and memory are blurred, and meaning is where you find it. The tramps hope that Godot will change their lives for the better. Instead, two eccentric travelers arrive, one man on the end of the other's rope. Nothing and everything happens; the outcomes are both funny and dangerous.  
 
Joining Fox on the creative team are set designer Scott Penner, Costume Designer Ming Wong, lighting designer Louise Guinand, and sound designer Michael Wanless.