Classic Stage Company announce new season

Classic Stage Company has announced five plays for its upcoming 44th Season. The company's 2010-2011 season will feature the New York premiere of Orlando, by Sarah Ruhl, adapted from the work of Virginia Woolf, and directed by Rebecca Taichman. Anton Chekov's Three Sisters, directed by Austin Pendleton, William Shakespeare's long lost play Double Falsehood, directed by Brian Kulick, School For Lies, by David Ives, directed by Walter Bobbie and Unnatural Acts conceived and directed by Tony Speciale.

The season will also include the company's First Look Festival. This year First Look turns its gaze to Molière, with 'Tartuffe,' 'School for Wives,' and 'The Misanthrope,' in Apr and May 2011.

The plays will be presented in the following season order:
Casting announcements and specific dates for each production will be forthcoming.

Orlando
by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Cast: tba.
Date: tba (expected to start previews in Sep 2010).

Synopsis: Spanning three centuries, the play chronicles the boisterous adventures of Orlando, a young nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's court who awakes in the middle of his life to discover that he is now a she, and immortal to boot. What ensues is a journey through the less accepting 18th and 19th Centuries where Orlando becomes a wife, mother and finally a witness to the brink of full suffrage for women.

Three Sisters
By Anton Chekov
Director: Austin Pendleton
Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mamie Gummer, Josh Hamilton, Roberta Maxwell, George Morfogen, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Peter Sarsgaard and Louis Zorich. Further casting to be announced. Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Jan 2011)

Synopsis: A year after the death of their father, an army officer, the Moscow-bred sisters Prosorov--Olga, Masha and Irina--are finding life drab and increasingly hopeless in a Russian provincial town.

Double Falsehood
By William Shakespeare
Director: Brian Kulick
Cast: tba Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Mar 2011)

Synopsis: Two beautiful female protagonists, one lowborn and one of higher birth, two contrasting leading men, one, of modest birth, full of honour and probity and the other an aristocratic villain. An interrupted marriage, a series of mad scenes and a near-rape add spice.

School For Lies
By David Ives
Director: Walter Bobbie
Cast: tba Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Apr 2011)

Synopsis: A free-form, modern riff on Molière's immortal comic classic The Misanthrope.

Unnatural Acts
Conceived by Tony Speciale
Director: Tony Speciale
Cast: tba Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Jun 2011)

Synopsis: Harvard University's administration has set up a secret court to determine what is taking place in Perkins Hall, Room 28. Behind those doors, eleven young men will discover themselves, their sexuality and an implacable intolerance that will forever alter their lives.

The 2010-2011 season will also include the company's First Look Festival. This year First Look turns its gaze to Molière, with Tartuffe, School for Wives, and The Misanthrope, in April and May, 2011.

CSC will also reunite with the Graduate Acting Program of the Columbia University School of the Arts for the sixth year of The Young Company, CSC'S Education and Outreach initiative. CSC's Young Company recently received a Shakespeare in American Communities Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This season The Young Company will present Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' in Mar 2011.