Bebe Neuwirth, Dianne Wiest, et al. Set for Classic Stage Company's 2011-12 Season

Following their current season which has included the sold out critical and box-office hits Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov and David Ives' The School for Lies, Classic Stage Company (CSC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Jessica R. Jenen, has announced details for their upcoming 2011-12 season, the esteemed Off-Broadway downtown theater company's 45th.

The new season continues CSC's commitment to world-class classical theatre with three extraordinary mainstage productions, including the culmination of its Chekhov Cycle on November 9th with the tragicomic masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, starring CSC veterans John Turturro and Academy Award-winner Dianne Wiest, directed by Andrei Belgrader. The Cherry Orchard will play a limited engagement through December 18.

In February, CSC veteran and Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham will star in Bertolt Brecht's masterpiece Galileo, taking on one of the great roles in the modern repertory, directed by Brian Kulick. Galileo will play a limited engagement from February 1 to March 11.

Beginning March 28, two-time Tony Award winner Bebe Neuwirth will star as Titania in William Shakespeare's immortal comic romp, A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Speciale, through May 6.

The 2011-12 season will also reunite CSC with the Graduate Acting Program of the Columbia University School of the Arts for the 7th annual The Young Company, CSC'S unique Education and Outreach initiative that has greatly impacted the lives of thousands of New York City public schoolchildren throughout the five boroughs. This season The Young Company will feature Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing from March 6 to March 18.

And in April, CSC will bring back its popular Open Rehearsal Series, featuring a company of seasoned actors and directors exploring a classic text over the course of three Monday evenings. This coming season will focus on Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, on April 16, 23 & 30.

Now in its 44th year as one of New York's most exciting theatres, Classic Stage Company is the award-winning Off-Broadway theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience. Led by Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Jessica R. Jenen, two of CSC's shows this season, Chekhov's Three Sisters and David Ives' The School for Lies, made the Critic's Choice lists for The New York Times, Time Out New York, New York Magazine, and The Village Voice. CSC also received two Obie Awards, for Best Director (Austin Pendleton in Three Sisters) and Best Actor (Hamish Linklater for The School for Lies), along with Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations for Best Revival (Three Sisters). The 2010-2011 Season also marked CSC's first collaboration with nationally-acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl, with the New York premiere of her adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. 2011 also ushered in the first professional production of the recently rediscovered Double Falsehood, now believed to be an adaptation of a long-lost Shakespeare play. This singular event also led to a series of panel discussions with the leading scholars in Shakespeare studies, including the legendary Harold Bloom (Yale University), David Kastan (co-editor of the Arden Shakespeare) and Gary Taylor (co-editor of the Oxford Shakespeare). CSC's current season concludes with Unnatural Acts: Harvard's Secret Court of 1920, a devised work based on true events that was developed by CSC's Associate Artistic Director Tony Speciale.

Recent productions include David Ives' highly acclaimed Venus In Fur, directed by Walter Bobbie; Shakespeare's The Tempest, starring Mandy Patinkin; Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, starring Denis O'Hare, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard; and Anne Carson's An Oresteia. Other recent productions: critically acclaimed sold-out runs of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, starring Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming; the world premiere of David Ives' New Jerusalem, directed by Walter Bobbie; Hamlet, Richard II, and Richard III starring Michael Cumpsty and directed by Brian Kulick; and Zoe Caldwell in Yasmina Reza's A Spanish Play, directed by John Turturro.

CSC presents plays from the past that speak directly to the issues of today. As CSC returns to works of the past, they endeavor to keep a clear eye on the future, particularly in terms of the next generation of artists and audiences. Classic Stage's artists are the finest established and emerging theater practitioners working in this country. Highly respected and widely regarded as a major force in New York and American theatre, Classic Stage 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. Memberships to Classic Stage Company productions are available at various price levels, including the flexible MasterPass membership, which in addition to prime seats entitles members to participate in CSC Special Series, including their sold-out Open Rehearsal events. For more information on Classic Stage Company visit the theatre's website at www.classicstage.org.

 

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski