Exclusive: Hear Grace McLean Perform 'Drunk Iliad' from PENELOPE Cast Album
The one-woman show features a Richard Rodgers Award-winning score by Alex Bechtel, recorded live at Joe's Pub.
Joy Machine Records has announced the upcoming release of Penelope: Live at Joe's Pub – a contemporary chamber musical that brings one of history's greatest epics to life – starring Broadway's Grace McLean. The full album, featuring the show's Richard Rodgers Award-winning folk-pop score, will be available on Friday, July 17. BroadwayWorld has an exclusive first listen to the album. Check out Grace performing, "Drunk Iliad" here!
Penelope features music and lyrics by Alex Bechtel, and book by Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean, and Eva Steinmetz. The album is produced by Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean, and Eva Steinmetz. To pre-save the album, please visit the label HERE.
Penelope will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, with McLean in the title role, from August 5 to August 30. Tickets are available HERE. The Edinburgh run is being produced by rigor + ruckus.
Penelope waited twenty years for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War. Now she's ready to share her side of the story – but she's going to need a drink first. Sharp, funny and unexpectedly moving, this is Penelope's Odyssey.
Penelope is inspired by the composer's experience of being forced to quarantine in separate cities from his romantic partner during the COVID pandemic. This musical for one actor and a five-piece band uses folk-pop songs, irreverent comedy, poetic physical gesture, and stirring instrumental pieces to tell the story of a day in the life of Penelope of Ithaca, stuck waiting for Odysseus to return.
After acclaimed productions at Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Signature Theatre in Washington DC, Theatre Horizon/Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and the Ancram Center for the Arts, the creators of Penelope held three concerts at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater to record a live cast album of the musical, starring Grace McLean in the title role, directed by Eva Steinmetz, and with Alex Bechtel at the piano.
Penelope is available for licensing through Concord Theatricals.
Alex Bechtel is a composer, actor, sound designer, writer, director, teaching artist, and multi-instrumentalist dedicated to the creation of new works of music, theatre, and musical theatre. Recent work includes: Penelope, a collaboration with performer Grace McLean and director Eva Steinmetz, which has received productions at Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Signature Theatre in D.C., Theatre Horizon, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Ancram Center for the Arts, and concert presentations at Joe's Pub at The Public Theatre, NYC. Arrangements/Music Direction for Poor Judge, an experimental dance-theatre exploration of the music of singer/songwriter Aimee Mann, with Pig Iron Theatre Company. Music & Lyrics for Lightning Rod Special's The Appointment (NY Times, Vulture, Time Out NY “Best of 2019” lists), People's Light & Theatre Company's Peter Panto: A Musical Panto, Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Panto, Sleeping Beauty: A Musical Panto, and Shakespeare in Love, Arden Theatre Company's The Light Princess and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's Two Gents, Henry V, Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, Midsummer, Much Ado, Merry Wives and Twelfth Night. Workshop productions of his musicals Philadelphia Nocturne (2017) and Cheer Up, Dostoevsky (2018) were presented in Philadelphia. He is the creator/director/composer for the devised musical hall drama The West, which had its world premiere in 2014 at the Off-Broad Street Theatre. Bechtel is a graduate of The Pig Iron School (Inaugural Class, 2013) and The University of the Arts (BFA 2008). He has received 7 Barrymore Awards, representing recognition for Outstanding Original Music, Music Direction, Performance by an Ensemble of a Musical, and Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. In 2015, he was awarded an Independence Fellowship in the Arts to engage in creative study with Kentucky-based composer Rachel Grimes on new approaches to the use of music in theatre. In 2026, Bechtel was awarded the Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre for Penelope, alongside co-writers Grace McLean and Eva Steinmetz. He lives in New York City. See and hear more at www.alexbechtel.com
About Grace McLean
Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actress-singer-writer-teacher. In addition to performing on Broadway (Suffs; Bad Cinderella; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), Off Broadway (New Group, MCC, LCT3, Public, La MaMa, Vineyard, among others) and TV/film (“The Other Two” - HBO; “The First Lady” - Showtime), Grace also makes time for her acclaimed original music. Rolling Stone called the “avant garde pop” songs “brilliant” on her debut full length album, My Lovely Enemy. Stephen Holden of the New York Times says “Ms. McLean's voice [is] a flexible instrument with unexpected reserves of power... Behind her playful adventurousness lies a well of passion.”
Grace's first original musical, In the Green, was commissioned and produced by Lincoln Center Theater and earned a Richard Rodgers Award for writing and a Lucille Lortel for her performance. Her work with composer Alex Bechtel and director Eva Steinmetz earned another Richard Rodgers Award for their piece Penelope. She composes music for theater (Lunar Eclise, The Apiary) and film (Marina, Our Mine – Best Score from Brooklyn Film Festival and Athens International Film Festival). Other honors include a Vivace Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and she is a Broadway Women's Fund Woman to Watch. Her band has performed for the Lincoln Center American Songbook two years in a row and she toured Pakistan and Russia with the US State Department as an artistic ambassador.
Grace has taught at NYU, The New School, Northwestern, UNCC, Orange County School of the Arts, New York Youth Symphony, among others. She has developed work at Manhattan School of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project, The O'Neill, Johnny Mercer Writer's Colony at Goodspeed, The PiTCH, CAP21, The Civilians R&D Group, and MacDowell. The original cast recording for In the Green is available on Ghostlight Records. Original music “My Lovely Enemy,” “Natural Disaster” and “Make Me Breakfast” are steaming now. @thatgracemclean www.gracemclean.com
Eva Steinmetz (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based theater director and filmmaker, creating new works that straddle the ordinary and extraordinary. Most notably, she directed and co-created Poor Judge, a dance-theatre-cabaret exploring heartbreak and the Hollywood Dream, and featuring original renditions of Aimee Mann's musical catalogue (Pig Iron – 4 Barrymore Awards, including Outstanding Production of a Musical); Penelope, a contemporary chamber musical about Odysseus's waiting wife (Alex Bechtel & Grace McLean – Richard Rodgers Award; 4 Barrymore nominations); and The Appointment, a musical satire skewering the hypocrisy and absurdity at the center of the American abortion debate (Lightning Rod Special – two-time New York Times Critic's Pick; Time Out NY Critics Pick; The New Yorker “Best of 2023;” 6 Barrymore nominations). Other credits include Sad Boys in Harpy Land (Alexandra Tatarsky), Art Houses (Theatre Horizon), The Caregivers (Pig Iron), Hart Island Requiem (Ty Defoe & Tidtaya Sinutoke), Wolfthicket (Lily Kind), and Krapp Hour (Anne Carson & Lightning Rod Special). Eva's short film, Marina, starring Grace McLean and Succession's Peter Friedman, received The Gotham Award and distribution through Focus Features. She was also a performer/creator in Josephine Decker's acclaimed movie, Madeline's Madeline. Eva is a Co-Artistic Director of the Pig Iron Theater Company, where she creates digital and live performances, and pilots educational and workshop-based initiatives.
Joy Machine Records – driven by passion, defined by craft – is a record label seeking to change the way we think about theater music. We call ourselves Joy Machine because we love making records. The music we release embraces the joy of authenticity, both in style and genre for today's artists and audiences. Our focus on process and collaboration stems from our collective experience in the recorded music industry as well as our work on Broadway. Our hands-on approach to each project allows artists at every level to develop their own voice. Artists will be greeted with kindness and transparency as they explore the best solutions for their unique musical projects. Our services provide the ability for artists who have typically worked within the space of musical theater to explore where they fit within the recorded music industry. We are a company of theater music artists for today.
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