Stephen Bogardus, Jeffry Denman, and More Join Classic Stage Company's PASSION- Full Cast Announced!

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, today announced complete casting for the company's upcoming new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical Passion, to be directed by John Doyle (director of the acclaimed Broadway revivals of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Company). Joining previously announced Melissa Errico (Clara), Judy Kuhn (Fosca) and Ryan Silverman (Giorgio) in the production are Stephen Bogardus (Colonel Ricci), Jeffry Denman (Lieutenant Barri), Jason Michael Evans (Private Augenti), Amy Justman (understudy), Ken Krugman (Lieutenant Torasso), Orville Mendoza (Sergeant Lombardi), Tom Nelis (Doctor Tambourri) and Will Reynolds (Major Rizzoli/Ludovic). Passion is slated to begin performances on February 8, 2013 at CSC (136 East 13th Street), with an official press opening scheduled for Thursday, February 28, playing a limited engagement through Sunday, April 7. Tickets will go on sale to the public beginning at Noon on Thursday, January 3.

PASSION opened on Broadway in May of 1994 and received the Tony Award that year for Best Musical. Passion features music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine. The production is directed and designed by John Doyle, with costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting by Jane Cox and sound by Dan Moses Schreier.

Tickets for Passion are available at www.classicstage.org or by calling 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. Tickets are $75 on Tuesday through Thursdays (select sides at $60) and $80 Friday through Sunday (select sides at $65). Passion will play 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 February 13 & 27; March 6 & 27 and April 3.

Stephen Sondheim (Music & Lyrics) wrote the music and lyrics for Saturday Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Frogs, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion and Road Show as well as lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz? and additional lyrics for Candide. Anthologies of his work include Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me a Little, You're Gonna Love Tomorrow and Putting It Together. For films and television, he composed the scores of Stavisky and Reds and wrote songs for Dick Tracy and "Evening Primrose." He co-authored the film The Last of Sheila and the play Getting Away With Murder. Mr. Sondheim is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981

James Lapine (Book) has worked with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods and Passion. He also directed the first revival of Merrily We Roll Along at La Jolla Playhouse. He also created and directed Sondheim on Sondheim for the Roundabout. With William Finn he has worked on Falsettos, A New Brain, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and the upcoming Little Miss Sunshine. Other Broadway credits: The Diary of Anne Frank, Golden Child and Amour. He has written the plays Table Settings; Twelve Dreams; Luck, Pluck & Virtue; The Moment When; Fran's Bed; and Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing.

John Doyle (Direction and Production Design) received Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards as Outstanding Director of a Musical for his Broadway debut, Sweeney Todd. His production of Sondheim's Company won the Tony for Best Musical Revival and earned him a Tony Award nomination as Best Director of A Musical. For The Metropolitan Opera he directed Peter Grimes. Other recent opera includes Mahagonny (L.A. Opera) and Lucia (Scottish Opera). He won UK Best Musical Awards for The Gondoliers (West End), Fiddler on the Roof and Moll Flanders with nominations for four other productions including Mack and Mabel (also West End). John has been artistic director of four prestigious UK regional theatres and has directed numerous new and classic plays, most recently Amadeus (Wilton's Music Hall).

Judy Kuhn (Fosca) played Fosca previously in Passion, directed by Eric Schaeffer, as part of the Kennedy Center's 2002 Sondheim Celebration. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards for her work on Broadway in The Roundabout's hit revival of She Loves Me, the American premiers of Chess, Les Miserables and Rags. Also on Broadway she appeared in Richard Nelson's play Two Shakespearean Actors, Alan Menken & Tim Rice's King David, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Judy played Olga in a new adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters by Craig Lucas (Intiman Theatre) and created the role of Betty Schaefer in the U.S. premiere of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. In London's West End she starred in Metropolis for which she received a Laurence Olivier Award Nomination. Other theatre includes Ricky Ian Gordon's Sycamore Trees (Helen Hayes Award), Michael John LaChiusa's The Highest Yellow, Eli's Comin' at The Vineyard Theatre (Obie Award), title role in The Ballad of Little Jo at the Steppenwolf Theatre Co. (Jeff Award Nomination), As Thousand's Cheer (Drama Dept.), Tina Landau and Ricky Ian Gordon's Dream True (Vineyard Theatre), Strike Up the Band (Encores!), The Glass Menagerie (McCarter Theatre/Emily Mann, dir.), Martin Guerre (Hartford Stage/Mark Lamos, dir.), and Martha Clarke's Endangered Species (BAM).

Judy sang the title role in Disney's Pocahontas as well as the in the sequel Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World. Other film and television appearances include: Enchanted, "Hope & Faith," "Law & Order," "All My Children," "The Secret Life of Mary Margaret" on HBO, "My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies" on PBS, "The Kennedy Center Honors," "The Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert" on PBS, "In Performance At The White House" on PBS, and the independent feature Day on Fire in which she costarred and performed the soundtrack with John Medeski. Judy has performed on concert stages around the world including appearances at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, The Hollywood Bowl, The Royal Albert Hall in London and with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops Orchestra. She can be heard on numerous original cast recordings as well as her solo album Just In Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne. In October of 2007 Judy released a new CD Serious Playground:The Songs of Laura Nyro and has performed selections from the recording in concert at Lincoln Center, Joe's Pub and the Kennedy Center.

Melissa Errico (Clara) has starred in numerous Broadway musicals and released two major solo CDs: Blue Like That (EMI) and Lullabies and Wildflowers (VMG/Universal). In 2003, Melissa won a Tony-nomination for Best Leading Actress in the Broadway musical Amour, composed by multi-Oscar-winning composer Michel Legrand. During the summer of 2011, Melissa co-starred with Alec Baldwin in Gift of the Gorgon by Peter Shaffer, and reprised Camelot with Jeremy Irons for one-night only on Broadway at The Shubert Theater. Errico's other Broadway credits include Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Children and Art, Dracula, Finian's Rainbow, Short Talks on the Universe, High Society, My Fair Lady and Anna Karenina. Other theater credits include The Threepenny Opera (Wiliamstown Theatre Festival), Sunday in the Park with George (Sondheim Festival) and the off-Broadway productions of One Touch of Venus and Call Me Madam.

Ryan Silverman (Giorgio) has starred as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and in Las Vegas. He has also been featured in Music in the Air (Karl) at Encores!; Cry-Baby on Broadway and The Most Happy Fella (Al) at New York City Opera. In London he played Tony in the Olivier Award-nominated West Side Story. He starred as Sky in the National tour of Mamma Mia!, and as Jose in the world premiere of the new musical Carmen at La Jolla Playhouse. He also performed in the Chicago production of Wicked. Regional credits include Thoroughly Modern Millie (Jimmy), Cinderella (Prince), Grease! (Danny), Hello, Dolly! (Cornelius), Assassins (John Wilkes Booth), Forever Plaid (Smudge), Sweeney Todd (Anthony) and Blood Brothers (Eddie Lyons). TV and film: "Gossip Girl," "The 5 Minarets of New York," Sex and the City 2, "True Blood." Concert performances with: The New York Pops, Philadelphia Pops, Philadelphia Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Seattle Symphony, The Cincinnati Pops, Utah Symphony, Houston Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, among others. www.ryansilverman.com

Stephen Bogardus (Colonel Ricci) Broadway: White Christmas, Old Acquaintance, Man of La Mancha, James Joyce's, The Dead (Helen Hayes nom.), High Society, King David, Love! Valour! Compassion! (Tony nom., Obie Award), Falsettos, Grapes of Wrath, Les Miserables,West Side Story. Off-Broadway: The Pavillion (Rattlestick Theatre), Sweet Adeline and Allegro (Encores!), Love! Valour! Compassion! (MTC), March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Playwrights Horizons), Genesis and Umbrellas of Cherbourg (NYSF), No Way to Treat a Lady (Hudson Guild), Feathertop (WPA), In Trousers (Promenade). Regional: God of Carnage (Huntington Theatre, Boston), Samantha (Goodspead), Some Men (Philadelphia Theatre Co), White Christmas (Boston/Wang Theater), A Little Night Music (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera), M. Butterfly (Arena Stage), Elegies (Canon Theatre), Bells Are Ringing (LA/Reprise!), Show Boat and Chess (Nat. tours), City of Angels (LA/Shubert), 80 Days (La Jolla), Progress (Long Wharf). Film/Television: "Eleventh Hour", "Life," "Monk," "Without A Trace," "Criminal Intent," "Law & Order," "SVU," "Alchemy," Love! Valour! Compassion!, "Ed" (recurring), "New York Undercover."

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 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.