Grey Gardens (musical)

Musical

Grey Gardens is a musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, produced in 2006 and based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale ("Big Edie") and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie") by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were Jacqueline Kennedy's aunt and cousin, respectively. Set at Grey Gardens, the Bouviers' mansion in East Hampton, New York, the musical tracks the progression of the two women's lives from their original status as rich and socially polished aristocrats to their eventual largely isolated existence in a home overrun by cats and cited for repeated health code violations. However, its more central purpose is to untangle the complicated dynamics of their dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship.

The first act depicts the characters in their heyday and is a speculative take on what their lives might have been like when they were younger, when Little Edie was 24 and Big Edie 47. The second act is set 32 years later in 1973 at the decaying Grey Gardens estate and hews closely to the Maysles Brothers' documentary in its portrayal of them in their later years, when Little Edie is 56 and Big Edie is 79. While the first act is almost entirely fictional (the central event, the engagement between Little Edie and Joseph Kennedy, never happened), the second act takes much of its dialogue and action directly from the film. The same actress who plays Big Edie in the first act plays Little Edie in the second act.

The musical opened Off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on February 10, 2006, and ran through April 30, 2006. Directed by Michael Greif with choreography by Jeff Calhoun, it starred Christine Ebersole, Mary Louise Wilson, and John McMartin. It received mixed reviews, but attracted particularly good reviews for Ebersole and Wilson. It earned five Lucille Lortel Award nominations and twelve Drama Desk Award nominations. Christine Ebersole received the Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, a special citation from the New York Drama Critics' Circle, and the Drama League Award for Performance of the Year (2006) for her dual roles of Edith and Edie Beale in the off Broadway production. The show opened, with revisions, on Broadway on November 2, 2006, at the Walter Kerr Theatre and closed on July 29, 2007, after 307 performances and 33 previews. The production was nominated for 10 Tony Awards in 2007, winning three, including awards for both Ebersole and Wilson in leading and featured actress categories, respectively. According to an article in Playbill on November 21, 2007, composer Scott Frankel said there were no plans for a national tour based on the 2006 07 Broadway production, but "Dramatists Play Service, Inc. is handling the show's licensing to stock, amateur, university and resident theatres. Independent productions, which started playing in those markets in 2008." In the spring of 2013, a three month run was mounted in Seattle as a co production between the 5th Avenue Theatre and ACT Theatre, starring Patti Cohenour and Suzy Hunt. In August 2015, a three week production was held at the Bay Street Theater, Sag Harbor, New York. Directed by Michael Wilson, the cast featured Betty Buckley, Rachel York, Matt Doyle (Joe/Jerry), Simon Jones (Major/Peale), Howard McGillin (George Gould Strong), James Harkness (Brooks Sr./Brooks Jr.), Sarah Hunt (Young Edie), Gracie Beardsley (Lee), and Dakota Quackenbush. Buckley and York star in a production at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, again directed by Michael Wilson in July and August 2016.

A documentary from Independent Lens, Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway, about the making of the musical, was screened on October 18, 2007, at the Hamptons International Film Festival Long Island, and was later shown on television on PBS stations.

Character Off Broadway (2006) Broadway (2006) London (2016) Los Angeles (2016)Prologue (1973) "Big" Edie BealeMary Louise WilsonSheila HancockBetty Buckley "Little" Edie BealeChristine EbersoleJenna RussellRachel YorkAct 1 (1941) "Big" Edie BealeChristine EbersoleJenna RussellRachel York George Gould StrongBob StillmanJeremy LegatBryan Batt Brooks, Sr. Michael PottsAko MitchellDavon Williams Jacqueline BouvierSarah HylandGrace Jenkins, Eleanor WaldronKatie Silverman Lee BouvierAudrey TwitchellKelsey FowlerAlana Hinge, Rebecca NardinPeyton Ella "Little" Edie BealeSara GettelfingerErin DavieRachel Anne RayhamSarah Hunt Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Matt CavenaughAaron SidwellJosh Young J. V. "Major" BouvierJohn McMartinBilly BoyleSimon JonesAct 2 (1973)"Big" Edie BealeMary Louise WilsonSheila HancockBetty Buckley "Little" Edie BealeChristine EbersoleJenna RussellRachel York Brooks, Jr. Michael PottsAko MitchellDavon Williams JerryMatt CavenaughAaron SidwellJosh Young Norman Vincent PealeJohn McMartinBilly BoyleSimon Jones

The Off Broadway cast album was released on August 22, 2006. The Original Broadway Cast album was released on March 27, 2007, through PS Classics. It was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.