Classic Stage Company Presents A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF Reading Today

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present a private reading of a new musical comedy A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF by Sheldon Harnick, based on Molière's LE MÉDECIN MALGRÉ LUI, today, February 1 at MTC Studios. The musical features a score by Harnick, as well as English Adaptation and Additional Dialogue. The reading will be directed by David Glenn Armstrong, with musical direction by Amanda Morton. The cast will feature Ben Davis, Beth Fowler, David Garrison, Cady Huffman, Charles Kimbrough, Jose Llana, Patrick Richwood, Robb Sapp and Elena Shaddow.

Sheldon Harnick's musical theatre career began in the 1950s with songs (e.g. "The Boston Beguine," "Merry Little Minuet") in revues on and Off-Broadway. In 1957 he teamed with Jerry Bock to create the scores for a number of memorable musicals including Fiorello (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize), She Loves Me (Grammy), Fiddler on the Roof (Tony), The Rothschilds and The Apple Tree. His other musicals include Rex (with Richard Rodgers), A Wonderful Life (Joe Raposo), A Christmas Carol (Michel Legrand), The Phantom Tollbooth (Arnold Black and co-librettist Norton Juster) and Dragons (for which he wrote book, lyrics and music). He has contributed songs to the films The Heartbreak Kid, Blame It on Rio (Cy Coleman) and Aaron's Magic Village (Legrand). In the world of opera, he has provided librettos for Jack Beeson's Cyrano, Dr. Heidegger's Fountain of Youth and Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Henry Mollicone's Coyote Tales and Thomas Z. Shepard's Love in Two Countries. Mr. Harnick has won two Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, three gold records and a platinum record. He is a longtime member of the Dramatists Guild and Songwriters Guild.

David Glenn Armstrong (Director) has staged over 160 productions and workshops seen in 49 states including work at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Walnut Street, Manhattan Theatre Club, Long Wharf, Goodspeed Opera, Library of Congress, Chicago Humanities Festival, Amas, HERE, NYMF, Arkansas Rep, Anchorage Opera, Pacific Rep Opera, and the Iowa Shakespeare Festival. He has previously directed presentations of Sheldon Harnick's A Doctor in Spite of Himself at the William Inge Festival and the York Theatre. David directed the first-ever revivals of Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joe Stein's The Body Beautiful (and co-produced the original cast recording), Arlen/Gershwin/Harburg's Life Begins at 8:40, Lerner & Loewe's The Day Before Spring, Jones & Schmidt's Roadside, Lindsay & Crouse's Happy Hunting, and a revised version of Joe Stein's Plain and Fancy. In addition, David has directed premieres by Jonathan Larson, Lamont Dozier, Ed Dixon, Sam Davis, Jack Lechner, Steven Fisher, Joan Ross Sorkin, Rich Orloff, Judith Steir, Jack Gindi, Bill Zeffiro, Lanie Bernes, and Si Kahn. www.DavidGlennArmstrong.com

CSC began its current season with Anton Chekhov's IVANOV, starring Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson and Juliet Rylance, directed by Austin Pendleton. Previews begin February 8 for its new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's PASSION, directed by John Doyle, and featuring Judy Kuhn, Melissa Errico and Ryan Silverman. 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.

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