Marcel Spears Awarded Classic Stage Company's 2015 Tichler Grant

Classic Stage Company has announced that Marcel Spears is this year's recipient of the Rosemarie Tichler Fund grant. The Fund was established in 2010 with the mission to assist young actors who have appeared at CSC and who have recently made the transition from their training into the profession. The $3,000 grant can be used by the young artist to continue training or to offset loans they may have incurred while studying their craft. With the grant, CSC hopes to make a difference in the lives of young actors at the start of their careers as well as to heighten awareness in the community to the specific needs of actors. The recipient was selected by a panel of judges, which included Rosemarie Tichler, CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick, and CSC Casting Director James Calleri.

Marcel made his CSC debut in the Young Company's 2015 Production of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Tyne Rafaeli, where he took on the role of Nick Bottom. Originally from New Orleans Marcel is a NY based Actor and Writer. Other N.Y.C credits include Light (Directed by Brian Kulick), Othello, The Threepenny Opera, The Emperor Jones, and The Maids (Columbia University/Columbia Stages). He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.

Rosemarie Tichler has a long legacy of identifying and nurturing new generations of young actors and is committed to their future well-being. Tichler was the Artistic Producer of The New York Shakespeare Festival/The Public Theater from 1991 to September 2001 where she worked on over 40 productions including The Skriker by Caryl Churchill, Simpatico by Sam Shepard, Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks, and George Wolfe's production of The Tempest at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Prior to 1991, Ms. Tichler was Head of Casting (1975-1991) at The Public for Joseph Papp where she cast over 150 plays, including such landmark productions as Andrei Serban's The Cherry Orchard, Richard Foreman's Threepenny Opera, and Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls.

Ms. Tichler founded The Shakespeare Lab: an intensive program for actors in Shakespeare performance. Prior to working at The Public, she was Associate Director for Artistic Services at Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the country's not-for-profit theaters, from 1972-74 and its Casting Director before that from 1969-71. Ms. Tichler has been teaching for New York University's Graduate Acting Program for over 20 years. She has also done workshops at major actor training programs around the country including The Juilliard School, The Actors Center, Yale Drama School, and the MFA program in Acting at Columbia. Ms. Tichler is the co-author with Barry Jay Kaplan of Actors At Work (2007) and The Playwright At Work (2012).

Tax-deductible donations can be made to The Rosemarie Tichler Fund by calling (212) 677-4210 x 22, by visiting online at www.classicstage.org/tichlerfund or by mailing a check to Classic Stage Company, Attention: The Rosemarie Tichler Fund, 136 East 13th Street, New York, NY 10003. Please make checks payable to Classic Stage Company.

CSC is the award-winning Off-Broadway theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for contemporary audiences. For more than 45 years, CSC has been a home for New York's finest established and emerging artists to grapple with the great works of the world's repertory that speak directly to the issues of today. CSC serves an average of 35,000 audience members annually, including more than 4,000 students through its nationally-recognized education programs. Recent productions include: Shakespeare's Hamlet starring Peter Sarsgaard; Turgenev's A Month in the Country with Peter Dinklage and Taylor Schilling; Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro; Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle with Christopher Lloyd, and Galileo with F. Murray Abraham; Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Passion with Melissa Errico, Judy Kuhn, and Ryan Silverman; Chekhov's Ivanov with Ethan Hawke, The Cherry Orchard with Dianne Wiest and John Turturro, Three Sisters with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Rylance, and Peter Sarsgaard, Uncle Vanya with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Denis O'Hare, and Peter Sarsgaard, and The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming; David Ives' The Heir Apparent, Venus in Fur with Nina Arianda (Broadway transfer 2011/2012, Tony Award nom., Best Play), The School for Lies with Hamish Linklater, and New Jerusalem with Richard Easton; Unnatural Acts, conceived by Tony Speciale; Anne Carson's An Oresteia; and Shakespeare's The Tempest with Mandy Patinkin, A Midsummer Night's Dream with Bebe Neuwirth, and Richard III, Richard II and Hamlet with Michael Cumpsty. CSC productions have been cited repeatedly by all the major Off-Broadway theatre awards: Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work.

For further information on Classic Stage Company, call (212) 352-3101, visit the theatre in person at 136 East 13th Street, or go to www.classicstage.org.