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Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) is one of the towering figures of 20th-century drama. His 1958 short play Krapp’s Last Tape takes on special meaning in the midst of a pandemic over 60 years later. Ruminating on a time of isolation and regret, the clown Krapp enacts his quirky birthday ritual: listening to a recording of his younger self and confronting the glories and failures of his youth. As part of the Globe’s What Is Theatre Now? project, acclaimed director and Old Globe Resident Artist Patricia McGregor (the Globe’s What You Are) creates a digital sharing of the quirky and touching play The Washington Post calls “an absurdist classic,” starring two-time Emmy Award winner Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”).
This free digital production of Beckett’s classic was available to stream through The Old Globe’s YouTube channel.
Krapp’s Last Tape is generously sponsored in part by Bank of America. Virtual programs at The Old Globe are supported in part by The Conrad Prebys Foundation. Financial support is provided by The City of San Diego. The Theodor and Audrey Geisel Fund provides leadership support for The Old Globe’s year-round activities.
Watch the Krapp's Last Tape Trailer Watch the Vicki and Carl Zeiger Insights Seminar with Ron Cephas Jones and Patricia McGregor
Samuel Beckett (Playwright) was born in 1906 near Dublin. In 1927, he graduated from Trinity College, where he eventually taught. His early work includes the long poem “Whoroscope” and the essay “Proust,” followed by short stories collected in More Pricks Than Kicks and Echo’s Bones, a collection of verse. During World War II, he played an active part in the French Resistance. Following the war, he wrote a trilogy of novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. His landmark play, Waiting for Godot, was completed in 1950 and premiered in Paris in 1953. He went on to write many others, including Endgame and Happy Days. Until his death in 1989, he continued to write short plays, including Not I, Footfalls, Ghost Trio, Rockaby, Catastrophe, and What Where. His later works of fiction include Worstward Ho and Stirrings Still. In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Patricia McGregor (Director) (she/her/hers), born in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, is a director and writer working in theatre, television, film, and music, and she is an Old Globe Resident Artist. McGregor has twice been profiled by The New York Times for her direction of world premieres. Her productions include Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole (co-writer and director; Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light), Sisters in Law (Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts), What You Are, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Measure for Measure (The Old Globe), Skeleton Crew (Geffen Playhouse), Good Grief (Center Theatre Group), Hamlet (The Public Theater), Place (Brooklyn Academy of Music),The Parchman Hour (Guthrie Theater), Ugly Lies the Bone (Roundabout Theatre Company), brownsville song (b-side for tray) (Lincoln Center Theater), Indomitable: James Brown (Apollo Theater), Holding It Down (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), A Raisin in the Sun, The Winter’s Tale, and Spunk (California Shakespeare Theater), Adoration of the Old Woman (INTAR Theatre), Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage), Four Electric Ghosts (The Kitchen), and the world premiere of Hurt Village (Signature Theatre Company). She served as Associate Director of Fela! on Broadway. For many years she has directed The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway. She served as director for HBO’s emerging writer’s showcase, and as tour consultant to Raphael Saadiq and J. Cole. Her short film Good Grief will premiere this year. Additionally she was a directing shadow on HBO’s “Lovecraft Country.” She co-founded Angela’s Pulse with her sister, choreographer, and organizer Paloma McGregor, and sits on the advisory boards of Adam Driver’s Arts in the Armed Forces and the Parent Artist Advocacy League. McGregor attended Yale School of Drama, where she was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and Artistic Director of Yale Cabaret.
