Nick Gehlfuss Awarded CSC's Rosemarie Tichler Fund Grant

Classic Stage Company has announced that Nick Gehlfuss, who appeared as Lysander in the company's recent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, is this year's recipient of the Rosemarie Tichler Fund grant. The Fund was established two years ago with the mission to assist young actors who have appeared at CSC and who have recently made the transition from their training into the profession. The $3500 grant can be used by the young artist to continue training or to offset loans they may have incurred while studying their craft. With the grant, CSC hopes to make a difference in the lives of young actors at the start of their careers as well as to heighten awareness in the community to the specific needs of actors. The recipient was selected by a panel of judges which included Rosemarie Tichler, CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick, CSC Casting Director James Calleri and John Turturro.

Nick Gehlfuss received his B.F.A. in Theatre from Marietta College and his M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Missouri Kansas City. He recently portrayed Andrew in Beyond Therapy at Westport Country Playhouse. His TV credits include "Army Wives," "The Good Wife," "Blue Bloods" and "I Just Want My Pants Back."

Rosemarie Tichler has a long legacy of identifying and nurturing new generations of young actors and is committed to their future well-being. Tichler was the Artistic Producer of The New York Shakespeare Festival/The Public Theater from 1991 to September 2001 where she worked on over 40 productions including The Skriker by Caryl Churchill, Simpatico by Sam Shepard, Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks and George Wolfe's production of The Tempest at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Prior to 1991, Ms. Tichler was Head of Casting (1975-1991) at the Public for Joseph Papp where she cast over 150 plays, including such landmark productions as Andrei Serban's The Cherry Orchard, Richard Foreman's Threepenny Opera and Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls.

Ms. Tichler founded The Shakespeare Lab: an intensive program for actors in Shakespeare performance. Prior to working at The Public, she was Associate Director for Artistic Services at Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the country's not-for-profit theaters from 1972-74 and its Casting Director before that from 1969-71. Ms. Tichler has been teaching at New York University's Graduate Acting Program and The Juilliard School for 20 years. She has also done workshops at major actor training programs around the country including The Actors Center, Yale Drama School and the MFA program in Acting at Columbia.

Tax-deductible donations can be made to The Rosemarie Tichler Fund by calling (212) 677-4210 x 12, by visiting online at www.classicstage.org or by mailing a check to Classic Stage Company, Attention: The Rosemarie Tichler Fund 136 East 13th Street, New York, NY 10003. Please make checks payable to Classic Stage Company.

Classic Stage Company is the award-winning theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience. The upcoming 45th Anniversary Season includes Chekhov's IVANOV, with Ethan Hawke, directed by Austin Pendleton; Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's PASSION, with Melissa Errico and Judy Kuhn, directed by John Doyle; and Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, with new music by Duncan Sheik, directed by Brian Kulick. This past season CSC presented the critically-acclaimed productions of The Cherry Orchard with John Turturro and Dianne Wiest, which received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival; Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham in Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, 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 PENN 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.

CSC presents plays from the past that speak directly to the issues of today. As we return to works of the past, we endeavor to keep a clear eye on the future, particularly in terms of the next generation of artists and audiences. Founded in 1967, CSC has received wide recognition for its significant contributions to theatre as an art form through productions of classic plays, translations and adaptations and a long-standing commitment to the identification and nurturing of leading and emerging artists. CSC's artists are the finest established and emerging theatre practitioners working in this country. Highly respected and widely regarded as a major force in New York and American theatre, 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.