Seattle Rep replaces two canceled shows on 2008-09 lineup

Seattle Repertory Theatre has canceled two shows originally slated for its current 2008-09 season, and announced two other plays that will replace them.

A production of Samuel Beckett's absurdist classic "Waiting for Godot," which was to star the Tony Award-winning actor Bill Irwin, has been scratched for financial reasons.

In a press statement, the Rep said the show was originally set to go on to Broadway from Seattle. But the theater lost funding vital to the project after a commercial producer for the show backed out.

Also off the schedule is "Rollick," a new musical based on the experiences of the rock band the Ottoman Bigwigs, during the height of Seattle's grunge scene in the early 1990s.

The world premiere of "Rollick" at the Rep was canceled due to a scheduling snafu for one of the cast members.

Replacing the sidelined shows will be Athol Fugard's "The Road to Mecca," a 1988 play focusing on a friendship between two women in apartheid South Africa; and "Breaking Hearts and Taking Names," a new piece created and performed by writer-storyteller Kevin Kling and accordion-player Simone Perrin. (Their show "How? How? Why? Why? Why?" was a hit at the Rep last spring.)

"The Road to Mecca" will run Jan. 15-Feb. 14 and "Breaking Hearts and Taking Names" plays April 9-May 10. To accommodate the new schedule, the Rep's production of "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter moves to a new time slot: Feb. 19-March 22.

Full details: 206-443-2222 or www.seattlerep.org.