Hollis Resnik Will Be Two Edies in Chicago Grey Gardens
By Kenneth Jones
and Adam Hetrick
10 Jul 2008
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Hollis Resnik
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The Chicago premiere of Grey Gardens, the musical portrait of the eccentric aunt and cousin of Jackie Onassis, will star Windy City theatre royalty Hollis Resnik in the dual middle-aged roles of Edith (Act One) and Edie Beale (Act Two).
Northlight Theatre in Skokie, IL, will stage the fictionalized (but fact-inspired) Tony Award-nominated musical Nov. 12-Dec. 21. Artistic director BJ Jones will direct. Doug Peck will be music director.
No stranger to classics, comedies, new works and musicals, Resnik has played almost every major stage in Chicago and has won eight Joseph Jefferson Awards. For two years, she toured as Fantine in Les Misérables. Resnik starred as Mrs. Meers in the national tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie, and was Omaha divorcee Muriel in the national tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. She released a solo album, "Make Someone Happy," in 2002.
The actress announced her casting in Grey Gardens on her website.
Resnik takes on two roles that earned Christine Ebersole a 2007 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical. The show has book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie. The writers were Tony-nominated for their work.
BJ Jones told Playbill.com, "A long time Northlight veteran who starred in City on the Make, Always Patsy Cline, Enter the Guardsman and The Immigrant, Hollis is one of Chicago's brightest stars and an old friend with whom I first worked in Much Ado About Nothing in 1982. I am thrilled to have her in this challenging role and back with us here at Northlight."
Here's how Northlight bills the show:
"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 more than 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 hilarious and heartbreaking look at two indomitable women."
For more information visit www.northlight.org.
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