Husband-and-wife movie stars Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart) and Peter Sarsgaard (An Education) are headed back to Classic Stage Company to star in Austin Pendleton’s revival of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Also on tap for the off-Broadway company's 2010-2011 season are the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando, Shakespeare’s newly discovered Double Falsehood, David Ives’ School for Lies and Tony Speciale’s Unnatural Acts.
Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard starred in Pendleton’s acclaimed 2009 mounting of Uncle Vanya at CSC. Three Sisters, which will begin performances in January 2011, will reunite much of the Vanya cast. Joining Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard will be Mamie Gummer, Josh Hamilton, Roberta Maxwell, George Morfogen, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Louis Zorich.
The season will begin in September with Ruhl’s Orlando, adapted from the work of Virginia Woolf and directed by Rebecca Taichman. Spanning three centuries, the play chronicles the boisterous adventures of Orlando, a young nobleman in Queen Elizabeth’s court who awakes in the middle of his life to discover that he is now a she, and immortal to boot.
In March 2011, CSC will present Shakespeare’s Double Falsehood, recently discovered after 400 years of scholarly questing, in a chamber production directed by CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick.
In April, playwright David Ives and director Walter Bobbie collaborate on Ives’ School for Lies, a free-form, modern riff on Moliere’s The Misanthrope. Ives and Bobbie will reunite following CSC’s hit 2010 production of Venus in Fur.
Ending the season in June will be Unnatural Acts, conceived and directed by Tony Speciale. In this theatrical retelling of a true story, Harvard University’s administration has set up a secret court to determine what is taking place in Perkins Hall, Room 28. Behind those doors, 11 young men will discover themselves, their sexuality and an implacable intolerance that will forever alter their lives.
CSC is currently presenting Kathleen Tolan's adaptation of Alexander Ostrovosky's The Forest, directed by Brian Kulick and starring Dianne Wiest and John Douglas Thompson.