Classic Stage Company's PASSION Extends Through April 14

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, announced today that their critically-acclaimed new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical Passion, directed by John Doyle (director of the acclaimed Broadway revivals of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Company), will extend by popular demand through Sunday, April 14 at CSC (136 East 13th Street). Passion stars Melissa Errico (Clara), Judy Kuhn (Fosca) and Ryan Silverman (Giorgio). The production also features Stephen Bogardus (Colonel Ricci), Jeffry Denman (Lieutenant Barri), Jason Michael Evans (Private Augenti), Ken Krugman (Lieutenant Torasso), Orville Mendoza (Sergeant Lombardi), Tom Nelis (Doctor Tambourri), Will Reynolds (Major Rizzoli/Ludovic), John Antony (understudy) and Amy Justman (understudy).

PASSION opened on Broadway in May of 1994 and received the Tony Award that year for Best Musical. Passion features music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine. The production is directed and designed by John Doyle, with music direction by Rob Berman, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting by Jane Cox and sound by Dan Moses Schreier.

Tickets for Passion are available at www.classicstage.org or by calling 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. Passion plays Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7pm; Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm; and Sundays at 3pm. Passion will also have Wednesday matinees at 3pm on March 6 & 27 and April 3. Ticket prices range from $65 to $90.

CSC is also instating a new day-of $40 General Rush ticket for Passion, available in person only at the box-office one hour before show time, subject to availability, one per person. $20 Student Rush seats are also available, one per valid student ID, one hour prior to show time and subject to availability.

CSC began its current season with Anton Chekhov's IVANOV, starring Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson and Juliet Rylance, directed by Austin Pendleton. Following Passion, CSC's Mainstage season wraps up in May with Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE starring Christopher Lloyd and featuring a new score by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). Directed by Brian Kulick (who directed this past season's sold-out production of Brecht's Galileo starring F. Murray Abraham at CSC), Brecht's playful parable calls into question our basic assumptions of right in a world that has gone wrong.

Classic Stage Company is the award-winning theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience. Founded in 1967, CSC uses works of the past as a way to engage in the issues of today. Highly respected and widely regarded as a major force in American theatre, it has become the home to New York's finest established and emerging artists, the place where they gather to grapple with the great works of the world's repertory from Sophocles to Sondheim. CSC has been cited repeatedly by all the major Off-Broadway theater awards: Obies, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and the 1999 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work.

Last season, CSC presented critically-acclaimed productions of The Cherry Orchard with John Turturro and Dianne Wiest, which received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival; Bertolt Brecht's Galileo starring Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham, directed by Brian Kulick; and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Bebe Neuwirth and Christina Ricci, directed by Tony Speciale. Past seasons have included critically-acclaimed productions of Chekhov's Three Sisters with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Rylance and Peter Sarsgaard, directed by Austin Pendleton (Obie Award); David Ives' The School for Lies with Hamish Linklater (Obie Award), directed by Walter Bobbie; Unnatural Acts, conceived and directed by Tony Speciale; Ostrovsky's The Forest with Dianne Wiest and John Douglas Thompson, directed by Brian Kulick; David Ives' Venus In Fur with Nina Arianda and Wes Bentley, directed by Walter Bobbie; Shakespeare's The Tempest with Mandy Patinkin, directed by Brian Kulick; Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with Denis O'Hare, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, directed by Austin Pendleton; Anne Carson's An Oresteia (International PEN Award for Poetry); Chekhov's The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming; David Ives' New Jerusalem with Richard Easton, directed by Walter Bobbie; Hamlet, Richard II, Richard III with Michael Cumpsty (Obie Award as Hamlet), directed by Brian Kulick; and Yasmina Reza's A Spanish Play with Zoe Caldwell, directed by John Turturro.