From the collection of American actor and noted Samuel Beckett performer Rich Cluchey, who had been serving a life sentence for kidnapping and robbery at California’s San Quentin prison when he saw a visiting production of Waiting for Godot in 1957.  Inspired by the performance, Cluchey and several other inmates soon formed a dramatic troupe called the San Quentin Drama Workshop, and Waiting for Godot was the first play staged by the company. It became known for its dedication to Beckett’s play, in particular the cycle of Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Krapp’s Last Tape, and after Cluchey’s parole in 1966, a reformed SQDW continued performing Beckett throughout the United States and Europe.

Beckett had been aware of the play’s unusual connection with prisoners since 1954, after he received a letter from an inmate about a 1953 production of Waiting for Godot at the Lüttringhausen Prison in Germany. Intensely moved by the man’s reaction, Beckett became singularly attentive to performances of his plays by prisoners. He became involved with the SQDW following Cluchey’s December 1974 invitation to the author to attend a Workshop performance of Endgame in Paris, and Beckett would go on to personally direct Cluchey in Krapp’s Last Tape in Berlin in 1977, and in Endgame in London in 1980 (along with Cluchey’s wife, Teresita Garcia Suro). Outside the theatre, a warm, personal relationship developed between Beckett and the Clucheys, with the playwright providing financial and moral support to them over a period of many years, and Cluchey and Garcia Suro naming their son after him.

From Glenn Horowitz Bookseller description