Waiting for Godot & No Man's Land: casting

Tony Award winners Billy Crudup (The Coast of Utopia) and Shuler Hensley (Oklahoma!) will join Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in the repertoire of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, directed by Sean Mathias.

The repertoire will play at the Cort Theatre, opening on 24 Nov 2013, following previews from 26 Oct 2013. This limited season will run for 14 weeks only.

Waiting for Godot played a critically acclaimed, sold-out run in London's West End in 2009 with McKellen and Stewart. Prior to Broadway, No Man's Land will play a brief engagement at Berkeley Rep from 3 - 31 Aug 2013, with McKellen, Stewart, Crudup and Hensley.

Designs for the productions include sets and costumes by Stephen Brimson Lewis (twice Tony-nominated for 'Indiscretions') and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski (a Tony Award winner for 'Contact' and 'The Producers').

Rehearsals for the repertory will begin this summer after Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart finish filming the next installment of the "X-Men" film series in their signature roles of "Magneto" and "Professor Xavier."

Ian McKellen made his Broadway debut in Arbuzov's 'The Promise' in 1967 and won the Tony Award for his performance in 'Amadeus' in 1981. Patrick Stewart first appeared on Broadway in Peter Brook's production of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in 1971 and 'A Christmas Carol' in 1992. The two actors have appeared together on stage once before. In 1977 they performed in the premiere of Tom Stoppard's 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.'

In Harold Pinter's No Man's Land we wonder if two writers, Hirst (Patrick Stewart) and Spooner (Ian McKellen) really know each other, or are they performing an elaborate charade? The ambiguity - and the comedy - intensify with the arrival of two other men. Do all four inhabit a no-man's-land between the present and time remembered, between reality and fantasy? No Man's Land was first produced in 1975 by The National Theatre in London with John Gielgud playing Spooner and Ralph Richardson as Hirst. No Man's Land debuted on Broadway a year later.

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot follows two consecutive days in the lives of Vladimir (Patrick Stewart) and Estragon (Ian McKellen), who divert themselves by clowning around, joking and arguing, while waiting expectantly and unsuccessfully for the mysterious Godot. Waiting for Godot premiered in Paris in 1953, followed by London in 1955 and eventually opened in New York in 1956.

Director Sean Mathias said, "Beckett and Pinter - the idea of connecting these two giant authors by examining two of their most remarkable plays with the same company of four actors portraying the writers' eight characters is one of the most exhilarating challenges I have yet faced in my work."

Sean Mathias (Director) was Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket for 2009/2010 where his production of Waiting for Godot starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart smashed all box office records and the debut production of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' enjoyed a susccesful run. He will be directing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' on Broadway this spring. His Broadway credits include directing Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren in 'Dance of Death'; 'Indiscretions,' which starred Eileen Atkins and Jude Law, for which he received a Tony nomination; and the 2002 revival of 'The Elephant Man.' His London credits include 'A Little Night Music' and 'Design for Living.'