Tony Award nominee Christine Ebersole will recreate her performance in Grey Gardens when the musical hits London sometime during the 2007-08 season. No further information on the engagement, or just-announced plans for a U.S. tour, are available at this time.
The musical, which bowed on Broadway in October after an off-Broadway run, has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards in total including Best Musical and a Best Leading Actress in a Musical nod for Ebersole. During last year's award race, the past Tony winner for 42nd Street won the Drama League's Distinguished Performance of the Year prize, a Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, an Obie Award and a special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle.
Based on the cult 1975 documentary of the same name, Grey Gardens features a book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie. The tuner tells the story of 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. In the first act, Ebersole portrays Edith; in the second act, Little Edie is played by Ebersole and Edith is portrayed by fellow Tony nominee Mary Louise Wilson.
Ebersole will be leaving the Broadway production of Grey Gardens, which is directed by Michael Greif, in October.
