July | Center Theatre Group

Marc Jacobs named a bag after her. Todd Oldham called her a total original,” and Isaac Mizrahi said Edie Beale's look goes beyond fashion. It’s the true meaning of the word style. Like her cousin, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Little Edie Bouvier Beale was an American woman of particular tastes who became a fashion icon....

Little Edie—‘Grey Gardens’ Fashion Icon

Set against the backdrop of a crumbling home in East Hampton, New York, Grey Gardens focuses upon the mother-daughter relationship between the reclusive Edith Ewing “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie. Big Edie is the opposite of a stage mom—at least according to Little Edie, she dashed her daughter’s showbiz dreams—but...

5 Musicals Showcasing ‘Stage Moms’

In 1975, a reclusive mother and daughter—the aunt and cousin, respectively, of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—living in a dilapidated Long Island mansion became American icons. The Maysles brothers’ documentary Grey Gardens is now considered a cult classic that has spawned numerous pop culture tributes, including Grey Gardens—The Musical, onsta...

Welcome to ‘Grey Gardens’

According to Center Theatre Group (and playwright Ayad Akhtar) Disgraced is a play in one act. But for cast members, our Concierge staff, and hundreds of patrons every night of the play’s run at the Mark Taper Forum (which closes on July 17, 2017), a second act began after the curtain call. The post-show Stage Talks we have held after every perfo...

Stage Talks Bring Audiences Together After ‘Disgraced’

A writer exposes the anger and pain underlying his ethnic community’s post-war American experience through deeply flawed characters and cutting humor—bringing him equal parts adulation for his work and criticism for his portrayal of his people. This is the story of Ayad Akhtar and Disgraced, the most produced play in the country, which is onsta...

Ayad Akhtar Exposes Cultural Cracks

In the midst of Act II of Grey Gardens—The Musical, Big Edie celebrates her adolescent friend, Jerry, and his fervor for her cooking—specifically the canned corn she cooks for him, which he chows down with delight: “I boil it on the hot plate / Till all the juice is gone / Bless his soul / He knows which side my corn is buttered on.” But �...

10 Musical Tributes to Food: A List Inspired by ‘Jerry Likes My Corn’