An intimate, 100-minute revival at Classic Stage Company opened Thursday night on the small thrust stage, crisply directed and designed by John Doyle (director of the Broadway revivals of "Sweeney Todd" and "Company").

WSJ: Review: Intense revival of Sondheim's 'Passion'

In all, 18 actors are deployed with assurance by director David Cromer on the compact thrust stage of the Mitzi E.

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Mr. Doyle, who also designed the set for this production, has approached "Passion" not as a naturalistic love story but as a piece of lyric theater, placing it in the simplest of environments, an open thrust stage, and arranging the actors in quasiballetic stage groupings that are as poetic as the songs they sing.

WSJ: Theater Review: The Subtle Joys of Small-Scale Sondheim

Now Ms al-Suwaij has been thrust centre-stage into the running of Iraq.

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But it's easy to imagine them being suddenly thrust onto center stage via an acquisition from an Amazon, Yahoo or a similar big name.

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In fact, they feel that China has been thrust onto the world stage earlier than it was prepared for.

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Now that the dust is settling from the debt ceiling debate in Washington, economic variables have been thrust back into center stage, with employment and ISM numbers out on Wednesday showing an economy that continues to move barely above stall speed.

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Its Russian liquid-fuelled first-stage is said to produce 1, 700 kilonewtons of thrust at launch.

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The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket uses nine engines to generate 855, 000 pounds of thrust, and is capable of carrying more than than 7, 000 pounds of cargo.

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