Elizabeth A. Davis, Mary Testa and More Star in CSC's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, Beg. Tonight

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present a new production of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle featuring Christopher Lloyd (Azdak), directed by Brian Kulick (who directed Brecht's Galileo last season), and featuring new music by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). The Caucasian Chalk Circle will begin performances tonight, May 3 at CSC (136 East 13th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 9. The official opening is Thursday, May 30.

The cast of The Caucasian Chalk Circle will also feature Jason Babinsky (Yusek); Elizabeth A. Davis (Grusha), a Tony Award nominee last season for her performance in Once; Alex Hurt (Simon), son of actor William Hurt; Tom Riis Farrell (The Corporal/Shuva/Fat Prince); Deb Radloff (Farmer's Wife/Aniko); and two-time Tony Award nominee Mary Testa (Governor's Wife).

Scenic design for The Caucasian Chalk Circle is by Tony Straiges, costume design by Anita Yavich, lighting design by Justin Townsend and sound design by Matt Kraus. Production Stage Manager is Terri K. Kohler. The translation is by Ralph Manheim with lyrics by W.H. Auden.

Tickets for The Caucasian Chalk Circle are available at www.classicstage.org or by calling 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111. The Caucasian Chalk Circle will play Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7pm; Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm; and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets start at $60 for Tuesday through Thursday performances and $65 for Friday through Sunday performances.

Christopher Lloyd (Azdak) CSC: Waiting For Godot. He has appeared in over two hundred plays including on and off Broadway, regional and summer stock productions. Recent New York includes Kaspar (Obie and Drama Desk award); Mornings At Seven, directed by Dan Sullivan; Twelfth Night in Shakespeare in the Park and Trumbo. Over ninety film and teleVision Productions including "Taxi" (two Emmys); "Road to Avonlea" (Emmy Award); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; the Back to the Future trilogy; Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead; Eight Men Out; Addams Family and Addams Family Values; BBC's Dead Ahead: Exxon Valdez Disaster; The Pagemaster; Dennis the Menace; Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai; Track 29; Clue; The Dream Team; Angels in the Outfield; Star Trek III; Goin' South; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; My Favorite Martian; Tales of Despereaux; Snowmen and Mike Nichols' HBO adaptation of Wit. Lloyd won an Independent Spirit Award for Twenty Bucks.

Jason Babinsky (Yusek) Broadway: Ghost the Musical (u/s Carl Bruner), Billy Elliot (u/s Tony). 1st national tour: Billy Elliot (u/s Tony). Regional: Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre Co., Syracuse Stage, Paper Mill Playhouse, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Goodspeed Opera House, Hangar Theater, Adirondack Theatre Festival, North Carolina Theater, St. Louis Repertory Theater (Kevin Klein Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a play - Bomb-itty of Errors). Film/TV: "House of Cards," "Person of Interest," Contagion, "You Don't Know Jack" (HBO), Law Abiding Citizen.

Elizabeth A. Davis (Grusha) comes directly from the Tony & Grammy winning musical, Once, where she received a Tony Award nomination, originating her role at American Repertory Theatre & New York Theatre Workshop. She's a 2013 Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellow as playwright/performer in her work, Joe. Off-Broadway: The 39 Steps (New World Stages), Wolves (59E59), Emily & Dally with the Devil (Theatre Row). Regional: The Misanthrope (Shakespeare Theatre of NJ), Ride the Tiger (Florida Stage), Doubt (Gulfshore Playhouse), Streetcar Named Desire (The Cleveland Playhouse), You Can't Take It With You (Great Lakes Theatre Festival). TV: "Fringe," "All My Children," "White Collar."

Tom Riis Farrell (The Corporal/Shuva/Fat Prince) Broadway: Chicago, Coram Boy, Dirty Blonde (Helen Hayes Award), Wrong Mountain, 1776. Off-Broadway: A.R. Gurney's The Old Boy (Keen), Arturo Ui with Al Pacino (National Actors Theatre), Li'l Abner (Encores!), Mary Rose and Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (Vineyard). Regional: Betty's Summer Vacation (Bay Street), Circle Mirror Transformation with Sandy Duncan (George Street), Rag and Bone (Long Wharf), Once in a Lifetime (Williamstown). TV: "Elementary," "The Americans," "Good Wife," "Fringe," "Brotherhood," seven "L&O"s, "Spin City". Film: Bourne Legacy, All Good Things, Stepford Wives, Almost Famous, Out-of-Towners, Devil's Advocate, Sleepless in Seattle, Scent of a Woman (upcoming: Are We Officially Dating?).

Alex Hurt (Simon) Broadway: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Off-Broadway: Unrequited (Public Theater, Shakespeare Lab). Regional: A Behanding in Spokane (SF Playhouse), No Man's Land (ART), Traps (Wilma Theater), The Lion in Winter and Othello (Hedgerow). Film: The River Why. MFA: NYU Tisch Graduate Acting.

Deb Radloff (Farmer's Wife/Aniko/Cook). CSC debut. NYC: Dance Dance Revolution (Les Freres Corbusier), Girls Night: The Musical (Sophia's Downstairs Cabaret). Regional: The Yiddish Are Coming: The Chosen Musical (world premiere, Denver Civic Theatre); Pericles, Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure (Nebraska Shakespeare Festival); A Christmas Carol (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); Richard III, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Inherit the Wind, Amadeus, As You Like it, and Death of a Salesman (The Old Globe). M.F.A in Acting: The Old Globe/USD.

Mary Testa (Governor's Wife) Broadway: Guys and Dolls, Xanadu (Drama Desk nomination), Chicago, 42nd Street (Tony nomination), Marie Christine, On the Town (Tony nomination) ...Forum, The Rink, Marilyn, Barnum. Off-Broadway: Queen of the Mist (Drama Desk winner, Lucille Lortel and Drama League noms.); Tricks the Devil Taught Me; Love, Loss and What I Wore; Regrets Only; See What I Wanna See (Drama Desk & Drama League nominations), First Lady Suite (Drama Desk nom.), String of Pearls (Drama Desk nomination); The Vagina Monologues; From Above (Obie), others. Film: Franny; Tio Papi; Eat, Pray, Love; The Bounty Hunter; others. Television: "Smash," "Two Broke Girls," "Over/Under," "White Collar," "Nurse Jackie," "Sex and the City," "Whoopi," others.

Duncan Sheik (Music) was awarded the 2007 Tony Awards for Best Orchestration and Best Original Score and a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album for his Broadway hit, Spring Awakening. Sheik is currently composing for the forthcoming production of American Psycho, which will be directed by Rupert Goold at The Almeida Theatre in London in Fall 2013. Other recent projects include an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic Nightingale with Steven Sater as well as Alice by Heart, inspired by Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in development at The National Theatre in London. Sheik was part of the 2009 Powerhouse Theater Season with a workshop of Whisper House, a collaboration with Kyle Jarrow, which premiered at The Old Globe Theatre in 2010; and Sheik and his collaborator on Spring Awakening, playwright Steven Sater, presented a workshop of Nero (Another Golden Rome) at the Powerhouse Theater in 2008. In the mid 1990's, Sheik's self?titled debut on Atlantic Records was an enormous popular and critical success, spent 52 weeks on the Billboard 200 and earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Male Vocal. In the midst of Sheik's theater projects, he continues to tour and release his own records, including 2011's "Covers 80s" a collection of Sheik's interpretation of classics and obscurities from artists from the synth pop?era. Sheik has composed for film and TV, including the film score for Mary Stuart Masterson's directorial debut, The Cake Eaters, and a film score for Curious Pictures' animated film Little Spirit and most recently Harvest. His albums include "Duncan Sheik" (1996), "Humming" (1998), "Phantom Moon" (2001), "Daylight" (2002), "White Limousine" (2006), "Brighter/Later: A Duncan Sheik Anthology" (2006), and "Greatest Hits: A Duncan Sheik Collection" (2007) "Whisper House" (2009), "Covers 80s" (2011).

Brian Kulick (Director) is in his tenth year as Artistic Director for Classic Stage Company. Recent productions for CSC include Brecht's Galileo with F. Murray Abraham, Shakespeare's The Tempest with Mandy Patinkin, Ostrovsky's The Forest with Dianne Wiest, and Shakespeare's Hamlet and Richard III with Michael Cumpsty. He commissioned and co-directed poet Anne Carson's award-winning An Oresteia, which was comprised of her translations of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' Orestes. From 1996-2001 Mr. Kulick was an Artistic Associate at The Public Theater where he directed Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale and Timon of Athens at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and also A Dybbuk, Pericles and Kit Marlowe at The Public's downtown home. Prior to this Mr. Kulick was the Associate Artistic Director of Trinity Repertory Theatre where he directed Romeo and Juliet, The Illusion and Don Quixote. He has directed the premieres of works by Nilo Cruz, Charles Mee, Tony Kushner, Han Ong and Kathleen Tolan. His work has also been seen at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, ACT (Seattle) and McCarter Theatre. His work in opera/music theatre includes Carmen, Pelleas and Melisande, A Soldier's Tale, The Guilty Mother and The Anatole Cycle (all for Long Beach Opera). He has also served as Creative Director of The Shakespeare Society and is currently on the faculty of Columbia's School of the Arts where he teaches directing with Anne Bogart.

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. The theatre is currently presenting the highly-acclaimed, sold-out production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Passion, directed by John Doyle, and starring Melissa Errico, Judy Kuhn and Ryan Silverman. Past productions include: 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, Tony Shalhoub and Christopher Lloyd; 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.