The End by Samuel Beckett
A fundraising evening for Irish theatre company Gare St Lazare Ireland.
Described by The New York Times as ‘the unparalleled Beckett champions’ Irish theatre company Gare St Lazare Ireland lead the way in staging Samuel Beckettʼs plays and prose. The company has performed and developed works that are timeless (Waiting for Godot), cross-disciplinary (The Beckett Trilogy, How it Is), and hybrid (Shades Through A Shade, The Last Tape). Whether working independently or in collaboration with The Abbey, Dublin, Signature Theatre, New York or Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, the company brings fresh interpretations and inventive approaches to Beckettʼs work. With over 25 Beckett titles they have toured to over 85 cities globally. they are true ambassadors of Irish culture.
The artistic directors Conor Lovett (and Judy Hegarty Lovett (Best Director Award Irish Theatre Awards) join us for an intimate evening of performance and chat around their work and Beckett’s. Their prior visits to New York includes several performances at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, The Public Theatre, Signature Theatre and of course The Irish Arts Center. In 2024 they produced Waiting for Godot with Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and next year they’ll make a new Irish production of Godot with Conor Lovett joined by Gary Oldman and Stephen Dillane. In 2026 they produced a 6 hour performance of Beckett’s exceptional novel How It Is in an art gallery during Venice Biennale and they premiered an opera called The Last Tape based on Krapp’s Last Tape and scored by Mihalovici. This will next be performed at Redcat in Los Angeles in January 2027 and features tenor Mark Padmore and Conor Lovett both playing the lead role along with Grammy nominated Elaine Kelly conducting and Judy Hegarty Lovett directing.
The End is one of Conor and Judy’s favorite Beckett works: its adapted from a short story where the narrator describes life after being dismissed from a care home. Full of his signature comedy it is one of Beckett’s most poignant and arresting pieces it confers great dignity on its narrator and as a result on those around us to whom life has dealt a bad hand – it may well change the way you look at the world.
