Grey Gardens -- The Musical

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 1:49am

I LOVE the movie and this looks great (as does the rest of Playwrights' season):

"Grey Gardens: A New Musical, by librettist Doug Wright, composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie, will be one of four world premieres in the 2005-06 season of Playwrights Horizons, the Off-Broadway company announced.

Michael Greif (Rent ) will direct the musical inspired by the creepy cult film documentary about relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier living in a squalid Long Island mansion. Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole (of the recent 42nd Street and Broadway's current Steel Magnolias) and Mary Louise Wilson (Cabaret, Full Gallop) will star as daughter and mother Edie and Edith Bouvier Beale.

Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for I Am My Own Wife, which began at PH prior to its Tony Award-winning run on Broadway. Composer Frankel is known as a musical director for Broadway's Falsettos and Off-Broadway's Putting It Together. Korie collaborated on the opera Harvey Milk, and is working with composer Lucy Simon on the new "Dr. Zhivago" musical.

Additional casting for the PH Mainstage production will be announced. The 1976 film "Grey Gardens," a Maysles Brothers Films Inc. Production, directed by David and Albert Maysles, was recently released on DVD. The film shows the dissipated Edith Bouvier Beale (age 79) and daughter Edie (age 57) in their decaying 28-room East Hampton home. Edith was aunt and Edie was cousin to Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

"Facing an uncertain future, Edith Bouvier Beale and her adult daughter, 'Little' Edie, are forced to revisit their storied past and come to terms with it – for better, and for worse," according to PH production notes.

In addition to the previously announced New York premiere of Fran's Bed, written and directed by James Lapine and starring Mia Farrow (starting Sept. 2 on the Mainstage); the world premiere of Keith Bunin's The Busy World Is Hushed, to be directed by Mark Brokaw on the Mainstage; and the New York premiere of Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon, directed by Emily Mann (a PH Mainstage co-production with McCarter Theatre), Playwrights Horizons' 35th season will also include the March 2006 world premiere of David Marshall Grant's Pen, directed by Will Frears and starring J. Smith Cameron, plus the world premiere of Sarah Schulman's Manic Flight Reaction directed by Trip Cullman (both works will appear in the intimate Peter Jay Sharp Theater)."

[Pinguin]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 2:28am

Playwrights Horizons tends to be hit and miss...I mean, some really great and important stuff has come out of that theater, but then you remember their last two seasons with things like WILDER and Recent Tragic Events and then you get discouraged.

Sounds REALLY cool though!

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 6:04am

I am so excited. The movie has been a favorite for years, and Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson are absolutely perfect for it.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 6:38am

"I was going to come out in a kimono. Mother and I had quite a row."

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 1:49pm

"I only care about three things: the Catholic Church, swimming and dancing, and I had to give them up."

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 6/2/05 at 1:53pm

I adore GREY GARDENS, though I'm not sure the material is going to gain anything by being musicalized. How can you possibly top what the camera already captured in real time?

Perhaps the musical will go into more detail about the back story of Edie and Edie Beal. Will we see characters like Edie's father ("Take that nailpolish off! Take that Lipstick Off!") and Gould (a "boogie-woogie composer with the most terrific style!")

I for one will be there wearing the best costume of the day to find out.