The evening will feature special performances and/or appearances by Nina Arianda, Hugh Dancy, Jenn Gambatese, Norm Lewis, Hamish Linklater, Lorna Luft and Bebe Neuwirth.  A cocktail reception begins at 6:45, followed by dinner at 8:00, a live auction and entertainment.  For benefit tickets and information call Audrey Carmeli at (212) 677-4210.

WALTER BOBBIE won the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards as best director of the international hit Chicago, which has become the longest-running revival in Broadway history. His current Broadway hit Venus In Fur transferred from Manhattan Theatre Club after premiering at CSC, where he also directed David Ives’ New Jerusalem and The School for Lies.  He is currently directing John Kander and Greg Pierce’s musical The Landing at the Vineyard Theatre. Recent seasons include Jeff Talbott’s The Submission at MCC, Evan Smith’s The Savannah Disputation at Playwrights Horizons, Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette & Boo at the Roundabout, David Ives’ The Other Woman at EST, and Terrence McNally’s Golden Age at the Kennedy Center, which he will direct again this fall at MTC. Other Broadway credits include White Christmas, High Fidelity, Sweet Charity, Twentieth Century, Footloose and A Grand Night for Singing.   Mr. Bobbie is also an actor whose New York appearances range from the original cast of Grease to Shaw’s Getting Married at Circle in the Square, Assassins at Playwrights Horizons, I Love My Wife, Going Up, A History of the American Film, Driving Miss Daisy, Café Crown and Lincoln Center’s Anything Goes, among many others. He received a Drama Desk nomination for his performance as Nicely-Nicely in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls, and Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for his performance in David Ives’ Polish Joke at Manhattan Theatre Club.  He has appeared in film, television, and as a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”  Mr. Bobbie served as Artistic Director of City Center’s acclaimed Encores!, as well as directing and appearing in many of its productions.  He sits on the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Now in its 45th year, Classic Stage Company is the award-winning theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience. This season CSC has presented the critically-acclaimed productions of The Cherry Orchard with John Turturro and Dianne Wiest and Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham in Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, directed by Brian Kulick, and is currently presenting 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 PENN 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.

CSC presents plays from the past that speak directly to the issues of today. As we return to works of the past, we endeavor to keep a clear eye on the future, particularly in terms of the next generation of artists and audiences.  Founded in 1967, CSC has received wide recognition for its significant contributions to theatre as an art form through productions of classic plays, translations and adaptations and a long-standing commitment to the identification and nurturing of leading and emerging artists. CSC's artists are the finest established and emerging theatre practitioners working in this country. Highly respected and widely regarded as a major force in New York and American theatre, 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. For more information on Classic Stage Company visit the theatre’s website at www.classicstage.org.