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Waiting for Godot in New Orleans (Enhanced Version) eBook

A Field Guide

Edited by Paul Chan. Text by Kalamu Ya Salaam, Paul Chan, Nato Thompson, Christopher McElroen. Foreword by Anne Pasternak.

In November 2006, the artist Paul Chan visited New Orleans, in particular those parts of the city devastated by Katrina. "Friends said the city now looks like the backdrop for a bleak science-fiction movie. (...) I realized it didn't look like a movie set, but the stage for a play I have seen many times." That play was Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play that has often been successfully staged in politically charged circumstances, such as a prison (San Quentin), and during a war (the Siege of Sarajevo, directed by Susan Sontag). In 2007, Chan staged four free outdoor performances of Godot in two New Orleans neighborhoods. This volume records Chan's project in essays and photographs, elucidating the terrible symmetry between Godot and post-Katrina New Orleans, and, as Chan writes, "the cruel and funny things people do while they wait: for help, for food, for hope."

The eBook Edition of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide features:
• Over 200 photographs, drawings, and illustrations.
• New essays and interviews by key project members, including Paul Chan, Christopher McElroen (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and Nato Thompson (Creative Time).
• Essays by Susan Sontag, Terry Eagleton, and Alain Badiou that illuminate the social and philosophical dimensions of Samuel Beckett’s work.
• Interviews with artists, collaborators, and community members from New Orleans offering insight into how the city responded to Godot.
• New audio compositions by Chan that accompanied the premiere of the Waiting for Godot in New Orleans archive at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in June 2010 (Apple version only).