It took half a century, but Godot has finally arrived.

Or, at least he does in Daniel Curzon's dark comedy, Godot Arrives, which just won the Southwest Theatre Association's 1999 National New Play Contest.

Playwright Curzon is best known for such gay-themed works as My Unknown Son and One Man's Opinion. This as-yet-unproduced sequel to Samuel Beckett's absurdist tragicomedy, Waiting For Godot, finds Vladimir and Estragon getting a lot more than they waited for. Here, according to Curzon's synopsis, Godot teams up with "the sinister Bozo to offer the two tramp anti-heroes everything the world has, by way of the physical, the spiritual, and the mental."

The play will get a reading, Nov. 12, at the Holiday Inn-Downtown in Shreveport, LA, with Texas Tech University faculty and graduate students taking part. On Nov. 13, author Curzon will receive a cash award and plaque.

The Southwest Theatre Association bills itself as "the country's oldest regional theatre organization, representing educational, community and professional theatre practitioners in the Southwestern states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas and Louisiana." Other plays by Curzon include Demons, Pixies in Peril and Don't Rub Me The Wrong Way.

-- By David Lefkowitz