Grey Gardens to Grow Again in Starry Upcoming Film

By: BWW News Desk Feb. 22, 2006

The eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy who gave rise to the cult documentary Grey Gardens are proving to be hot commodities. An upcoming film with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange joins the Playwrights Horizons musical in putting the mother-and-daughter Bouviers before the public eye once again.

"Barrymore will play Little Edie, and Lange will play her mother, Big Edie Bouvier Beale, the socialite cousin and aunt, respectively, of Kennedy Onassis. The Edies made headlines around the world when Jackie O herself materialized to rescue her family from public disgrace," according to an article in Variety. The trade paper reports that the film will be written and helmed by commercials director Michael Sucsy, and produced by Sucsy, Lucy Barzun and Rachael Horovitz.

The film, which will cover 40 years, will also feature Kennedy Onassis, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn as characters. "You couldn't capture the eccentric nature of those women better than the documentary did, but it left me with so many questions of what led them there," Sucsy stated. Albert and David Maysles created the original documentary.

Grey Gardens: A New Musical began previews at the Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater on February 10th and will open on March 7th at 7 PM; the limited engagement is slated to end on March 26th.

With a book by Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife), composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie, will also co-star Tony Award-winner Christine Ebersole (Steel Magnolias, 42nd Street) and Mary Louise Wilson (The Women, Cabaret), as well as Sara Gettelfinger (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Nine), Matt Cavenaugh (Urban Cowboy), Sarah Hyland (Paper Mill Playhouse's Annie), six-time Tony Award-nominee John McMartin (Sweet Charity, Follies), Michael Potts (Lennon), two-time Tony Award-nominee Bob Stillman (Grand Hotel) and Audrey Twitchell. Tony Award-nominee Michael Greif (Rent) directs.

"Grey Gardens concerns the deliciously eccentric aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who were once among the brightest names in the pre-Camelot social register, and are now East Hampton's most notorious recluses, living in a dilapidated 28-room mansion. 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 Playwrights Horizons notes.

In the musical, Ebersole and Wilson respectively play Edith in 1941 and 1973, while Gettelfinger and Ebersole play Edie in those same years.

Grey Gardens' creative team includes Allen Moyer (sets), William Ivey Long (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting), Brian Ronan (sound), Wendall K. Harrington (projections), Bruce Coughlin (orchestrations) and Lawrence Yurman (musical direction).

For more information on Grey Gardens: The Musical, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.

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