Peter O'Shaughnessy developed considerably. In September 1957, he staged the first Australian production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at the Arrow Theatre in Melbourne with himself as Vladimir and Humphries as Estragon. It proved a hit with both audiences and critics. The critic of the Melbourne "Sun" wrote "so engrossing and well-done is this extraordinary adventure by Samuel Beckett regimented by Peter O'Shaughnessy's tender care that for me the evening passed by on wings". Later in the same year, O'Shaughnessy planned a production of George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" for December, in tandem with a children's play to be performed at matinees.
Words and Music (play) use of music in the play and the conceptual nature of Words/Music as "characters" sets up a difficult to achieve convention. One might say that Music delivers a form of "line" with each iteration as part of its/his "character function." The challenges Beckett sets up for the composer are manifold. He ascribes attitudes, intentions and interpersonal relating to Music that stretch the "normal" parameters of what music can achieve as a form of expression. Perhaps the point where music and text meet and become the same thing/interchangeable was the place Beckett sought in most of his writing endeavors. Certainly that