Jean Cocteau Repertory will close its 1998-99 season with Happy Days by Nobel Prize winning playwright, Samuel Beckett, May 21 - June 20. Former resident company member, Angela Vitale will play the central role.

The opening image of Happy Days is Winnie, buried waist deep in a huge mound of dirt, performing the dreary tasks of everyday life with a painstakingly optimistic demeanor. She and her husband, Willie, fight to survive life through the performance of these mundane rituals.

Beckett, one of the few playwrights this century to have won a Nobel Prize for Literature, is also the author of Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape and Endgame.

Founded in 1971, Jean Cocteau Repertory uses a resident company of actors to bring twentieth century classics (American and European) to an Off-Broadway stage. The company is located in the Bouwerie Lane Theatre (330 Bowery) in New York's East Village. The company is currently traveling to Brazil to perform its 1996 production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, after a limited engagement at their home stage.

For tickets or more information, call (212) 677-0060. -- By Sean McGrath