May 14, 2026… One of the most influential plays of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot arrives at the Festival Theatre in a highly anticipated production directed by Molly Atkinson. Taking the Festival stage for the first time in history, this strictly limited engagement stars acclaimed Canadian actors Paul Gross and Tom McCamus as Vladimir and Estragon, alongside Jonathan Goad as Pozzo and David W. Keeley as Lucky. With its strikingly minimal design, anchored by a solitary tree emerging from the Tanya Moiseiwitsch stage itself, this production transforms the Festival Theatre into a stark and haunting landscape unlike anything audiences have seen before.
This profound and darkly comic drama follows two weary travellers as they wait endlessly beside a barren tree for the mysterious Godot to arrive. As time stretches and certainty slips away, their exchanges unfold with humour, tenderness and aching humanity, revealing a timeless meditation on companionship, hope and the search for meaning in an uncertain world.
For Director Molly Atkison, the enduring power of the play lies in the questions it asks all of us. Humans have tried throughout history to find out what it is we are doing here,” she says. “We have created systems to keep us organized, jobs to keep us working and religions to try to explain the unexplainable. Still, the question remains: What are we doing here?” In Atkinson’s haunting staging, Beckett’s barren landscape becomes a mirror for our own restless searching, where moments of absurdity, silence and unexpected tenderness illuminate the fragile beauty of perseverance and simply continuing on.
The role of Boy in Waiting for Godot is shared by Gordon Paul Miller and Asher Albert Waxman. Understudying in the production are Paul Dunn, John Kirkpatrick, Gordon S. Miller and Emilio Vieira.
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Atkinson is joined by Set and Costume Designer Cory Sincennes, Lighting Designer Jareth Li, and Composer and Sound Designer Alessandro Juliani.
Waiting for Godot officially opens on May 30, 2026 and runs until July 31, 2026 at the Festival Theatre. Tickets are available at stratfordfestival.ca or by calling 1.800.567.1600.
The 2026 season also features The Tempest, Guys and Dolls, Something Rotten!, Death of a Salesman, The Hobbit, The Importance of Being Earnest, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, The Tao of the World and The King James Bible Play. For more information, visit stratfordfestival.ca.
The 2026 Season is supported by Ophelia Lazaridis.
Proud 2026 Season Partners: BMO, Canada Life and RBC Royal Bank.
Support for the 2026 season of the Festival Theatre is generously provided by Daniel Bernstein & Claire Foerster.
Production Co-Sponsors: M. Fainer, Marilyn Gropp, Doug Kennedy and Dr. Robert & Roberta Sokol.
CAST (in alphabetical order)
Paul Dunn Understudy
Jonathan Goad Pozzo
Paul Gross Vladimir
David W. Keeley Lucky
John Kirkpatrick Understudy
Tom McCamus Estragon
Gordon Paul Miller Boy
Gordon S. Miller Understudy
Emilio Vieira Understudy
Asher Albert Waxman Boy
ARTISTIC CREDITS
Director Molly Atkinson
Set and Costume Designer Cory Sincennes
Lighting Designer Jareth Li
Composer and Sound Designer Alessandro Juliani
Fight and Intimacy Director Anita Nittoly
Assistant Set and Costume Designer Lindsay Forde
Assistant Lighting Designer Sruthi Suresan
Associate Fight Director David Chinchilla
Stage Manager Maxwell T. Wilson
Assistant Stage Manager Brady Hillman
Assistant Stage Manager Holly Korhonen
Production Stage Manager Krista Blackwood
Production Assistant Katherine Hunter
Child Performer Advocacy Director Maggie Blake
Technical Director Robbin Cheesman
