John Doyle Joins Classic Stage Company Team as Associate Director

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, announced today that acclaimed Tony Award-winning director John Doyle will join the company for its 2013/2014 season as an Associate Director. Doyle, who directed and designed the company's current highly-acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical PASSION, will develop his own projects for CSC, contribute leadership for CSC's new Musical Theatre Initiative (for which PASSION was the launch production) and consult with Artistic Director Brian Kulick over season planning and other creative aspects of CSC's artistic programming.

Said Brian Kulick, "I think I can speak for everyone that has ever worked with John when I say the encounter is both intoxicating and life-altering. Here is an artist of the keenest intelligence, deepest humanity and boundless spirit; rehearsals become a wonderfully extended holiday where everyday there is a new gift of insight or inspiration. It is a great joy for all of us at CSC to be able to continue this special relationship with John on a more formal, on-going basis. In short: we are thrilled and honored to make CSC a home for this extraordinary artist who understands the nature and power of theatre on a cellular level."

Said John Doyle, "I am thrilled to have been invited by Classic Stage Company to become an Associate Director with the company. Directing PASSION at this wonderful venue was a true pleasure and it is so exciting to have the opportunity to make an on-going input into the work of CSC. I look forward to spending some time each season with Brian Kulick and his terrific staff."

Now in its 45th Anniversary Season, CSC is the award-winning Off-Broadway theatre committed to re-imaging 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.

CSC began its current season with Anton Chekhov's Ivanov, starring Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson and Juliet Rylance, directed by Austin Pendleton. The theatre is currently presenting the highly-acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Passion, directed by John Doyle, and starring Judy Kuhn, Amy Justman and Ryan Silverman. Past productions include: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Bebe Neuwirth; Brecht's Galileo with F. Murray Abraham; Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with Dianne Wiest and John Turturro; Chekhov's Three Sisters with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Rylance and Peter Sarsgaard; David Ives' The School for Lies with Hamish Linklater; Unnatural Acts conceived by Tony Speciale; Ostrovsky's The Forest with Dianne Wiest and John Douglas Thompson; David Ives' Venus in Fur with Nina Arianda (Broadway transfer 2011/2012, Tony Award nom. Best Play); Shakespeare's The Tempest with Mandy Patinkin; Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Denis O'Hare and Peter Sarsgaard; Anne Carson's An Oresteia; Chekhov's The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming; David Ives' New Jerusalem with Richard Easton; Richard III; Richard II and Hamlet with Michael Cumpsty; Yasmina Reza's A Spanish Play with Zoe Caldwell; Steve Martin's adaptation of The Underpants; Philip Glass's In the Penal Colony; Bill Irwin's adaptation of Texts for Nothing; Waiting for Godot with John Turturro, Tony Shalhoub and Christopher Lloyd; Entertaining Mr. Sloane with Brian Murray; Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party with David Strathairn and Faust Parts I and II, directed by CSC founding Artistic Director Christopher Martin.

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