Grey Gardens to open at Northlight Theatre

Grey Gardens to open at Northlight Theatre

Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans announce the Chicago premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical Grey Gardens, book by Doug Wright, lyrics by Michael Korie and music by Scott Frankel.  The production, directed by BJ Jones with musical direction by Doug Peck, choreography by Marla Lampert and featuring Hollis Resnik, Tempe Thomas and Ann Whitney, has already been extended and will now run November 12-December 28, 2008, at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.
This brand new musical comes to Chicago after its 2007 Tony Award-winning Broadway run, giving Northlight audiences the chance to rub elbows with Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little Edie," Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' most scandalous relatives!  Once the highest of high society, the two have become East Hampton's most notorious recluses, living in a dilapidated 28-room mansion with 51 cats for company.  Set in two eras—1941 when the celebrated estate was the picture of wealth and sophistication, and 1973 after it had been reduced to squalor—Grey Gardens is a brilliant and heartbreaking look at two indomitable women.
"Edith and Edie Beale have become iconic figures in our culture thanks to the Grey Gardens documentary film. But beyond the exploitation factor that has grown up around them, is the resilient dignity of these two eccentric women, shunned by the world and clinging to each other in the eye of the hurricane that is their life," says BJ Jones.  "Grey Gardens is both a musical and a performance piece, daring to blend styles, and explode form. In our continuing effort to challenge our audience, Grey Gardens will reward them with this tale of quirky humanity; a mother-daughter love story like nothing they have ever experienced."
The Grey Gardens cast includes: Sean Blake (Brooks Sr., Brooks Jr.), George Keating (George Gould Strong), Dennis Kelly (Major Bouvier, Norman Vincent Peale), Hollis Resnik (Edith, act I; Little Edie, act II), Patrick Sarb (JP Kennedy, Jerry), Tempe Thomas (Little Edie, act I) and Ann Whitney (Edith Bouvier Beale, act II).  Arielle Leigh Dayan plays Lee Bouvier and Grace Etzkorn is Jackie Bouvier.
The designers are John Culbert (set), Jacqueline Firkins (costumes), JR Lederle (lights), Cecil Averett (sound) and Kate Brown (props).  The jewelry designer is Ayla Phillips of Ayla's Originals in Evanston.  The stage manager is Rita Vreeland.  The assistant director is Brian LaDuca and the dramaturg is Meghan McCarthy.  The orchestra is yet to be announced.