Classic Stage Company, or CSC, is a classical Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 theater dedicated to reimagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience, presenting plays from the past that speak directly to today's issues. Founded in 1967, Classic Stage Company is one of Off-Broadway's longest-enduring theaters. Its 180-seat theatre is located at 136 East 13th Street between Third

Third Avenue (Manhattan)

Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from Cooper Square north for over 120 blocks. Third Avenue continues into The Bronx across the Harlem River over the Third Avenue Bridge north of East 129th Street to East Fordham Road at...

 and Fourth Avenues in the East Village

East Village, Manhattan

The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...

 near Union Square

Union Square (New York City)

Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Classic Stage Company is led by Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Jessica R. Jenen. Its productions have been cited repeatedly by the major Off-Broadway theater awards: Obie Award

Obie Award

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

, Drama Desk Award

Drama Desk Award

The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

, Outer Critics Circle Award

Outer Critics Circle Award

The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on and Off-Broadway and were begun during the 1949-1950 theater season. The awards are decided upon by theater critics who review for out-of-town newspapers, national publications, and other media outlets...

, Drama League Award

Drama League Award

The Drama League Awards, created in 1935, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing...

 and 1999 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work.

Productions

Recent productions include The Tempest

The Tempest

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

starring Mandy Patinkin

Mandy Patinkin

Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...

 and continued with Uncle Vanya

Uncle Vanya

Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....

starring Denis O'Hare

Denis O'Hare

Denis O'Hare is an American actor noted for his award winning performances in Take Me Out and Sweet Charity as well as the HBO television show True Blood. He is also known for his supporting roles in the films Charlie Wilson's War and Milk...

, Maggie Gyllenhaal

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Margaret Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She is the daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She made her screen debut when she began to appear in her father's films...

, and Peter Sarsgaard

Peter Sarsgaard

John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...

 and the world premiere of An Oresteia, with new translations by acclaimed poet Anne Carson

Anne Carson

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....

, Chekhov's The Seagull

The Seagull

The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

starring Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...

 and Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...

, as well as Richard III

Richard III (play)

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...

with Michael Cumpsty

Michael Cumpsty

Michael Cumpsty is a British actor. He has been acting since childhood. He has worked extensively performing Shakespeare, as well as both musicals and dramas on Broadway...

 and the world premiere of New Jerusalem by David Ives

David Ives

David Ives is a contemporary American playwright. A native of South Chicago, Ives attended a minor Catholic seminary and Northwestern University and, after some years' interval, Yale School of Drama, where he received an MFA in playwriting...

.

Other past productions have included Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

and Richard II

Richard II (play)

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...

, both starring Michael Cumpsty

Michael Cumpsty

Michael Cumpsty is a British actor. He has been acting since childhood. He has worked extensively performing Shakespeare, as well as both musicals and dramas on Broadway...

; world premiere of Kathleen Tolan's new translation of The False Servant by Marivaux, directed by Brian Kulick; New York premiere of SITI Company's Death and the Ploughman by Johannes von Saaz, directed by Anne Bogart; Big Dance Theater's Antigone by Mac Wellman, directed by Paul Lazar; The Mysteries by Mikhail Bulgakov, Dario Fo, Tony Harrison and Borislav Pekić, directed by Brian Kulick; Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras, directed by Les Waters; Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, directed by Barry Edelstein; New York premiere of Ghosts translated by Lanford Wilson; New York premiere of SITI Company's Room; world premiere of Steve Martin's adaptation of The Underpants, now published by Hyperion Books; world premiere of Monster by Neal Bell, directed by Michael Greif; New York premiere of Philip Glass' In the Penal Colony, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis; Ferdinand Bruckner's Race, available from Dramatists Play Service; and Bill Irwin's adaptation of Beckett's Texts for Nothing; John Turturro

John Turturro

John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...

, Tony Shalhoub

Tony Shalhoub

Anthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub is an American actor of Lebanese descent. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in Monk...

 and Christopher Lloyd

Christopher Lloyd

Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...

 appeared in Waiting for Godot, and Uma Thurman

Uma Thurman

Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. Among her best-known roles are those in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill...

 made her stage debut in The Misanthrope. Dan Castellaneta

Dan Castellaneta

Daniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Noted for his long-running role as Homer Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, he voices many other characters on The Simpsons, including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble,...

 made his New York stage debut in The Alchemist, and Mira Sorvino

Mira Sorvino

Mira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.- Early life :Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey...

 and Daniel Benzali

Daniel Benzali

Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...

 appeared in Pirandello's Naked.

Other prominent artists who have worked at Classic Stage Company include Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci is an American actor, writer, film producer and film director. He has been nominated for several notable film awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in The Lovely Bones...

, Liev Schreiber

Liev Schreiber

Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...

, Jean Stapleton, David Strathairn

David Strathairn

David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...

, Peter Riegert

Peter Riegert

Peter Riegert is an American actor, screenwriter, and film director, best known for his role as Boon from Animal House and crooked New Jersey State Assemblyman Ronald Zellman on the HBO original series The Sopranos.-Early life:...

, Frances McDormand

Frances McDormand

Frances Louise McDormand is an American film and stage actress. She has starred in a number of films, including her Academy Award-winning performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo, in 1996...

, Billy Crudup

Billy Crudup

William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...

, Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...

, Michael Torke

Michael Torke

Michael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...

 and many others.

Corporate, Foundation and Government Supporters

• American Theatre Wing
  American Theatre Wing
  The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...
  
  
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City and Princeton, New Jersey in the United States, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, endowed with wealth accumulated by the late Andrew W. Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969...
  
  
• The Angelson Family Foundation
• Axe-Houghton Foundation
• Barbara Bell Cumming Foundation
• Bay and Paul Foundations, Inc.
• Carnegie Corporation of New York on behalf of Michael Bloomberg
  Michael Bloomberg
  Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
  
  
• Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation
• David Berg Foundation
• Edith C. Blum Foundation
• The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation
• Friars Foundation
• Gensler
  Gensler
  Gensler is an American design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 1965 by Art Gensler, Drue Gensler, and James Follett, and originally focused on corporate interiors...
  
  
• Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
• Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust
• Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
• Jacob L. and Lillian Holtzmann Foundation
• The Laura Pels International Fund for Theatre
• Lila Acheson Wallace Theatre Fund
• Lucille Lortel Foundation
• Memorial Foundation for the Arts
• Michael Tuch Foundation
• National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
  
• New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
  New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
  The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs is dedicated to supporting and strengthening New York City's vibrant cultural life. Among their primary missions is to ensure adequate public funding for non-profit cultural organizations, both large and small, throughout the five boroughs.-External...
  
  
• New York State Council on the Arts
  New York State Council on the Arts
  The New York State Council on the Arts is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell , with backing from Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and began its work in 1961...
  
  
• New York Times Company Foundation Fund for Midsize Theatres, a project of A.R.T./New York
• The PECO Foundation
• The Puffin Foundation, Ltd.
• Scherman Foundation
• Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   and Arts Midwest
  Arts Midwest
  Arts Midwest, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is one of six not-for-profit regional arts organizations created to “encourage development of the arts and to support arts programs on a regional basis.” Arts Midwest's mission is to "promote creativity, nurture cultural leadership, and engage...
  
  
• The Shakespeare Society
• Shubert Foundation
• Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation
• Theatre Communications Group
  Theatre Communications Group
  Theatre Communications Group is an organization dedicated to the promotion of non-profit professional theatre in the United States. TCG has over 450 member theatres located in 47 states; 17,000 individual members; and a growing number of University, Funder, Business and Trustee Affiliates...
  
  

Awards

• Village Voice OBIE Award for Hamlet, Performance, Michael Cumpsty (2005)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Monster, Performance, Christopher Donahue (2002)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Texts for Nothing, Set Design, Douglas Stein (2001)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Texts for Nothing, Performance, Bill Irwin (2001)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for I Will Bear Witness, Performance, George Bartenieff (2001)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Race and I Will Bear Witness, Set Design, Neil Patel (2001)
• Lucille Lortel
  Lucille Lortel
  Lucille Lortel was an American actress and theater producer who is remembered as the namesake of an off-Broadway playhouse and theatrical award....
  
   Award for Outstanding Body of Work (1999)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Costume Design, Martin Pakledinaz, The Misanthrope (1999)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Direction, David Esbjornson, Thérèse Raquin (1998)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Performance, Elizabeth Marvel, Thérèse Raquin (1998)
• Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1996)
• Village Voice OBIE Award for Outstanding Achievement (1995)
• Village Voice OBIE for Performance, Peter Francis James, Amphitryon (1995)
• Outer Critics Circle Citation for Sustained Excellence (1995)
• Village Voice OBIE for Lighting Design, Brian MacDevitt, The Maids, The Illusion and Triumph of Love (1994)