TheatreWorks announces `Grey Gardens' cast

Mountain View's TheatreWorks will present the first post-Broadway production of the Tony Award-winning musical Grey Gardens, based on the documentary of the same name about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy's quirky, reclusive relatives.The cast has been announced, and in the role that won Christine Ebersole (above) a Tony on Broadway is Beth Glover, a veteran of touring companies such as All Shook Up, Dirty Blonde and Promises, Promises. In Act 1, Glover plays Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie), a quirky society matron married to Phelan Beale. In Act 2, she plays Edith and Phelan's daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie), a truly odd woman who liked to wear a lot of clothing, none of it in its usual function (i.e., skirts on her head, shirts as a skirt, etc.).Playing the elder Big Edie is Dale Soules, who understudied the role on Broadway and went on to play it when Mary Louise Wilson left the show. Also in the cast is Elisa Ven Duyne as Little Edie in her younger years (in Act 1), Nicholas Galbraith as Joe Kennedy (Act 1)/Jerry (Act 2), Michael Winther, Michael LeRoy Brown, Kathryn Foley, Carolyn Di Loreto, Isabella Wilcox and Paul Myrvold.The musical opens in the 1940s, when the Beales entertained lavishly in their East Hampton estate, Grey Gardens. Act 2 finds Big Edie and Little Edie still living in a crumbling, raccoon-infested Grey Gardens as virtual hermits. These are the Beales the world came to know through the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, which inspired the musical, with a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife) and music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie.Kent Nicholson directs the TheatreWorks production, which begins performances Aug. 20 and continues through Sept. 14. Tickets are $26-$64. Call 650-903-6000 or visit www.theatreworks.org.