New Classic Stage PASSION to Receive Two Disc Cast Recording on PS Classics!

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, announced today that PS Classics, home to a dozen Sondheim cast albums, will record and release the cast recording of its critically-acclaimed new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical PASSION, directed by John Doyle.

The two-disc set will be produced by PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker, who has helmed over a dozen Sondheim albums, including Grammy-nominated cast recordings of Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Company, A Little Night Music, Sondheim on Sondheim and Follies. Cast and orchestra will assemble in a New York recording studio on April 8. Krasker anticipates a June 4, 2013 release date.

The album is currently available for pre-order at the label's website, www.psclassics.com.
PASSION, recently extended by popular demand through Friday, April 19 at CSC (136 East 13th Street), stars Melissa Errico (Clara), Judy Kuhn (Fosca) and Ryan Silverman (Giorgio). The production also features Stephen Bogardus (Colonel Ricci), Jeffry Denman (Lieutenant Barri), Jason Michael Evans (Private Augenti), Ken Krugman (Lieutenant Torasso), Orville Mendoza (Sergeant Lombardi), Tom Nelis (Doctor Tambourri), Will Reynolds (Major Rizzoli/Ludovic), John Antony (understudy) and Amy Justman (understudy). The production is directed and designed by John Doyle, with music direction by Rob Berman, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting by Jane Cox and sound by Dan Moses Schreier. PASSION is the inaugural production of CSC's Musical Theatre Initiative with generous support from The Ted and Mary Jo Shen Charitable Gift Fund and The Angelson Family Foundation.

Tickets for PASSION are available at www.classicstage.org or by calling 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. PASSION plays Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7pm; Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm; and Sundays at 3pm. PASSION will also have Wednesday matinees at 3pm on March 27 and April 3. Ticket prices range from $65 to $90.

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. Following Passion, CSC's Mainstage season wraps up in May with Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle starring Christopher Lloyd, featuring a new score by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and directed by Brian Kulick. Past productions include: Chekhov's Ivanov with Ethan Hawke; 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 and Tony Shalhoub; 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.

Founded in 2000 by Tommy Krasker & Philip Chaffin, and an eight-time Grammy nominee (for its cast albums of Assassins, Nine: The Musical, Grey Gardens, Company, A Little Night Music, Sondheim on Sondheim, Follies and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess), PS Classics celebrates the heritage of Broadway and American popular song through award-winning cast recordings; solo albums by such artists as Maureen McGovern, Victoria Clark, Steven Pasquale, Liz Callaway and Christine Andreas; and restorations of long-lost musicals, including Sweet Bye and Bye and Strike Up the Band 1930. Recent releases include Rebecca Luker: I Got Love (Songs of Jerome Kern), the 2012 Encores! Recording of Merrily We Roll Along, and its acclaimed studio cast recording of George Gershwin's earliest surviving score, Sweet Little Devil. Visit www.psclassics.com.

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