Acting Up to Present the Toronto Premiere of GREY GARDENS, Starring Lisa Horner, Nicola Lipman and More, 2/19

Acting Up Stage Company is thrilled to announce they will present the Toronto premiere of the critically acclaimed and Tony award-winning musical - GREY GARDENS. GREY GARDENS will run in Toronto from Friday, February 19th to Sunday March 6th (Opening night February 22) at the Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs (26 Berkeley St.), having its first preview40 years to the day that the film premiered theatrically in the U.S.. Tickets - on sale starting today - run from $35 to $55 and are available by phone at 416-368-3110, online at www.canadianstage.com, or in person at the box office.

Based on the 1976 cult classic documentary, GREY GARDENS is a tragic, funny, and utterly unforgettable musical about two "staunch" and legendary women: Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale - the infamous aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Once the pinnacle of American high society, Big Edie and Little Edie became tabloid fodder in the 1970's when they were discovered living alongside feral cats and raccoons in the dilapidated, flea-infested remains of the family's East Hampton estate.

The winner of 3 Tony Awards and rave reviews on and off Broadway, the musical adaptation of GREY GARDENS explores the fine lines between dependency and love, hope and fantasy, and the past and the present. It is the first ever musical based on a documentary film.

Leading the Toronto cast are Lisa Horner (THE WILD PARTY, KINKY BOOTS, LES MISERABLES, THE WIZARD OF OZ) as Little Edie and Nicola Lipman(ANOTHER HOME INVASION, THE DECEMBER MAN, DRIVING MISS DAISY, CABARET) as Big Edie. They are joined on stage by Matthew Brown, Amariah Faulkner, Tim Funnell, Kira Guloien, Hannah Levinson, Jeff Lillico, and Victor A. Young.

" brings to mind two phrases seldom linked nowadays: 'Broadway musical' and 'artistic integrity'... the songs, 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." Stephen Holden of The New York Times

Development of the musical began back in 2002. In a letter Little Edie wrote to Albert Maysles prior to her death in January 2002, she expressed her excitement about the idea of Grey Gardens being turned into a stage musical: "I am thrilled by what you wrote about the musical 'g.g!' My whole life was music and song! It made up for everything! Thrilled - thrilled - thrilled! I have all of Mother's sheet music and her songs she sang. With all I didn't have, my life was joyous!"*

Playwrights Horizons, a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work, presented "developmental readings" of the upcoming world premiere of Grey Gardens: A New Musical in Manhattan, on October 5-6, 2005. The official premiere was at Playwright's Horizons on March 7, 2006, and the musical made its Broadway premiere on November 2, 2006. The suggested dress code for the evening was "uniquely festive, with red shoes preferred." This, because, opening night was a Thursday (and they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday)!

Acting Up Stage Artistic Director Mitchell Marcus comments, "We are so excited to bring this musical to Toronto exactly 40 years from the day that the amazing documentary premiered theatrically. This musical breaks new ground by being the first musical ever to be based on a documentary. Like any great adaptation, it enhances the documentary through a fictional first act that portrays the lives of the Beales in the 1940s, and a second act that uses music to bring depth and humanity to the people we know from the documentary. I think that the dynamic film and theatre cultures in our city will make Toronto an ideal audience for this work."

*From greygardensonline.com

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