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.
Marquee for the original Broadway production at The Walter Kerr Theatre in 2006
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."[2]
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.[3][4] Buckley and York star in a production at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, again directed by Michael Wilson in July and August 2016.[5]
The Canadian premiere was presented from May 2 to 19, 2012, by Fighting Chance Productions in Vancouver, BC at the Jericho Arts Centre. The cast featured Cathy Wilmot (Big Edie - Act One/Little Edie - Act Two), Lucas Blaney (Joe Kennedy), Ranae Miller (Little Edie - Act One), Sue Sparlin (Big Edie - Act Two), Jack Rigg (Major Bouvier), Carman J. Price (Gould), Hal Rogers (Brooks), Angela Cotton (Jackie Bouvier) and Emma Cawood (Lee Bouvier) with direction and musical staging by Ryan Mooney and music direction by Caitlin Hayes.
A Japanese production opened on November 7, 2009, at Theater Creation in Tokyo and closed on December 6. The production then toured other Japanese cities, including Osaka and Nagoya.[7]
A Brazilian production opened on March 15, 2013, at the Sala Municipal Baden Powell in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, performing 32 times and closing on May 5, 2013. With musical translations, adaptations, and production by Jonas Klabin with additional musical translations by Claudio Botelho, directed by Wolf Maya, musical direction Carlos Bauzys and Daniel Rocha. Starring Soraya Ravenle, Suely Franco, Carol, Puntel, Guilherme Terra, Sandro Christopher, Pierre Baitelli, Jorge Maya, Danilo Timm, Raquel Bonfante and Sofia Viamonte, with Mirna Rubim substituting Suely Franco during the last couple weeks. There were approximately 9000 spectators.[8]
The Brazilian production was nominated:
3x to Cesgranrio Award (best light design for Luiz Paulo Nenen, best set design for Bia Junqueira, best actress for Suely Franco).
3x to APTR Award (best set design for Bia Junqueira, best supporting actress for Suely Franco, best production by popular vote Jonas Klabin (Oz).
1x to Shell Award (best actress for Suely Franco).
The production's set design was also selected for exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial 2015, Bia Junqueira was one of the set designer selected to represent Brazil.
London
The musical had its UK premiere at the Southwark Playhouse in January 2016. Directed by Thom Southerland, the cast included Sheila Hancock and Jenna Russell.[9]
Documentary
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,[10] and was later shown on television on PBS stations.
"The Girl Who Has Everything" ≈ — Recording of Edith's voice
"The Five-Fifteen" — Edith, Gould, Brooks, Jackie and Lee
"Mother Darling" — Edie, Edith, and Gould
"Goin' Places" ≈ — Joe and Edie
"Marry Well" ≈ — Major Bouvier, Brooks, Jackie, Lee and Edie
"Hominy Grits" — Edith, Gould, Jackie and Lee
"Peas in a Pod" — Edie and Edith
"Drift Away" — Gould and Edith
"The Five-Fifteen" (Reprise) — Edith
"Daddy's Girl" — Edie and Joe
"The Telegram" — Edie
"Will You?" — Edith
Act II
"The Revolutionary Costume for Today" — Edie
"The Cake I Had" — Edith
"Entering Grey Gardens" — Ensemble
"The House We Live In" — Edie and Ensemble
"Jerry Likes My Corn" — Edith
"Around the World" — Edie
"Choose to Be Happy" — Norman Vincent Peale and Ensemble
"Around the World" (Reprise) — Edie
"Another Winter in a Summer Town" — Edie and Edith
"The Girl Who Has Everything" (Reprise) — Recording of Edith's voice
≈ denotes new songs written for the Broadway production.[11]
Songs omitted in the Broadway production: "Toyland", "Body Beautiful Beale", "Being Bouvier", "Better Fall Out of Love", "Tomorrow's Woman", "Peas in a Pod" (Reprise).
Reception
The Broadway production was received enthusiastically by critics. Time magazine named Grey Gardens the best show of 2006.[12] In reviewing the off-Broadway production, Ben Brantley, reviewing for The New York Times, wrote "A blend of gentle compassion and acute observation, Ms. Ebersole's performance is one of the most gorgeous ever to grace a musical." However, he also noted that the musical "tilts perilously toward cheap celebrity camp". With a "very long and finally tedious first act".[13]Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that the musical "bring[s] to mind two phrases seldom linked nowadays: 'Broadway musical' and 'artistic integrity.' The songs from 'Grey Gardens,' with music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie, sustain a level of refined language and psychological detail as elevated as Stephen Sondheim's. The score is a meticulously fashioned piece of musical theater that gains in depth the more you listen to it."[14][15]
Recordings
The Off-Broadway cast album was released on August 22, 2006.[11]
Betty Buckley is an American actress and singer. Buckley is the winner of a Tony Award, and was nominated for an additional Tony Award, two Daytime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Olivier Award. In 2012, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Joel Grey is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer, and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret on Broadway and in Bob Fosse's 1972 film adaptation. He has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. He earned the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2023.
Grey Gardens is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a derelict mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival but was not entered into the main competition.
Edith Bouvier Beale, nicknamed Little Edie, was an American socialite, fashion model, and cabaret performer. She was a first cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Lee Radziwill. She is best known for her participation in the 1975 documentary film Grey Gardens, by Albert and David Maysles,.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Known for his extensive work in the American theatre in both plays and musicals, he has received numerous accolades including the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
Christine Ebersole is an American actress, singer and comedian. She has appeared in film, television, and on stage. She starred in the Broadway musicals 42nd Street and Grey Gardens, winning two Tony Awards. In 1984, she appeared as Caterina Cavalieri in the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Directors Guild of America Award-winning period biographical drama film Amadeus.
Michael Korie is an American librettist and lyricist whose writing for musical theater and opera includes the musicals Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven, and the operas Harvey Milk and The Grapes of Wrath. His works have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and internationally. His lyrics have been nominated for the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award. In 2016, Korie was awarded the Marc Blitzstein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Scott David Frankel is an American composer.
Sara Gettelfinger is an American actress, singer, and dancer.
Rachel York is an American actress and singer. She is known for stage roles, including award winning performances in Camelot, Hello, Dolly!, Into the Woods, and Anything Goes. She also has performed in film and on television, including her portrayal of Lucille Ball in the 2003 television film Lucy.
Laura Ilene Benanti is an American actress and singer.
Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale was an American socialite and singer known for her reclusive and eccentric lifestyle. Known as Big Edie, she was a sister of John Vernou Bouvier III and an aunt of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and socialite Princess Lee Radziwill. Her life and relationship with her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale was highlighted in the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Bob Stillman is an American actor, singer, and songwriter.
The 61st Annual Tony Award ceremony was held on June 10, 2007 at Radio City Music Hall, with CBS television broadcasting live. The cut-off date for eligibility was May 9, meaning that to be qualified for the 2006-2007 season, shows must have opened before or on this date.
Barbara Walsh is an American musical theatre actress who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions. Walsh is known for her Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nominated role as Trina in the original Broadway production of Falsettos, as well as her turn as Joanne in the 2006 Broadway Revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company.
Erin Davie is an American actress and singer, best known for her performance as the young Edith Bouvier Beale in the musical Grey Gardens, taking the part on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 2006, after its initial run Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.
Grey Gardens is a 2009 American biographical drama television film about the lives of Edith Bouvier "Little Edie" Beale, played by Drew Barrymore, and her mother Edith Ewing "Big Edie" Bouvier, played by Jessica Lange. Co-stars include Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy, Little Edie's cousin, and Ken Howard as Phelan Beale, Little Edie's father. The film, directed by Michael Sucsy and co-written by Sucsy and Patricia Rozema, flashes back and forth between various events and dates ranging from Little Edie as a young débutante in 1936 moving with her mother to their Grey Gardens estate through the filming and premiere of the actual 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Phelan Beale was an American attorney and sportsman in New York City who was married to Edith Ewing Bouvier, an aunt of former First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Beale is probably best remembered as the absent father chronicled in the Grey Gardens saga portrayed in a 1975 movie documentary, 2006 Broadway musical, and 2009 HBO film, all of which were named for his home in East Hampton, New York.
Michael Greif is an American stage director. He has won three Obie Awards and received five Tony Award nominations, for Rent, Grey Gardens, next to normal (sic), Dear Evan Hansen, and Hell's Kitchen.
Jerry “The Marble Faun” Torre is an American sculptor. He is best known for his appearance in the 1975 independent documentary films Grey Gardens and The Beales of Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles. As a sculptor, his work has been shown in several galleries in New York City and written about in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Forbes, among other publications. He is affectionately known among cult-film followers as "The Marble Faun"; a nickname that Edith Bouvier Beale gave him upon their first meeting. Torre worked as an assistant to Wayland Flowers, and through Aristotle Onassis obtained a job tending gardens for the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia. He was portrayed in the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Grey Gardens in 2006. His life has been documented in the 2011 film The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens.
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