Chicago Tribune article on Christine Ebersole and her hand in the Grey Gardens musical

Christine Ebersole has received quite a bit of attention in the press recently since her Tony Award nomination for her performance in Grey Gardens the Musical.

From Chicago Tribune, by Loren King

Christine Ebersole's triumphant odyssey

She's the toast of Broadway right now; the odds-on favorite to win the best actress Tony award June 10 for the musical "Grey Gardens." And Christine Ebersole is savoring her moment, not so much for the nightly standing ovations or the sweet success that has come to a 54-year-old actress who has overpaid her dues, but because Ebersole nearly single-handedly propelled a tough-to-categorize show from off-Broadway onto the big stage and into the position to reap accolades.

"I never doubted the show would succeed [on Broadway]," Ebersole says. "My belief in it was so strong, I knew we had to find some way to plug into those that believed and not try to convince those that didn't." Ebersole has just finished a Tony Awards rehearsal at Radio City Music Hall (she'll sing a number from "Grey Gardens" at the ceremony) and now, settling into her dressing room backstage at the Walter Kerr Theater, she's squeezing interviews, photo shoots and a much-needed nap into the precious hours before the curtain goes up at 8.

Even some members of the creative team behind "Grey Gardens" -- Pulitzer prize-winning writer Doug Wright, lyricist Michael Korie and composer Scott Frankel -- weren't convinced the quirky musical based on the 1975 cult classic documentary had the "legs" for a an expensive Broadway run.

On to Broadway

After its debut at Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway, where the show earned mixed reviews (except for the performances by Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, which won raves), Ebersole campaigned to get it produced in a Broadway theater.

"I had to just get everybody on board," she says. "I told them, 'don't listen to the noise. Don't listen to the statistics. We just have to believe in its worth.' When I got half a million dollars on the table, I called a meeting with Playwrights Horizons, and I told them, either we do what it takes to get this show to Broadway or I'm letting it go." Her pale blue eyes well up, in an overwhelmed, not overly dramatic way, as she talks of sitting in the theater as the Tony nominees were announced and "Grey Gardens" earned a whopping 10, including best musical. "Seeing all our names -- it blew me away because I believed in it. I've won already, just to get to this place, this moment of recognition. It is a testament of faith," she says.

It wasn't always so for the Winnetka-born Ebsersole, who still has family in the Chicago area: a brother in Glen Ellyn and a sister in Ft. Sheridan. She attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville for two years before a theater professor told her to get to New York. At 20, she was waiting on tables in Manhattan; two years later, she got her first job -- on Broadway in the play "Angel Street" ("The producer had to buy my equity card," she says.)

She continued to land roles that made good use of her trained voice, from co-starring with Richard Burton and Richard Harris in a revival of "Camelot" to matching wits with Kevin Kline in "On the Twentieth Century." Despite "the amazing family of show business" she had so easily fallen into, Ebersole decided to make the break for Los Angeles and cultivate her television and film career, one that began with her single, rather forgettable season (1981-82) as a regular cast member of "Saturday Night Live."

Born for the stage

Her big-screen resume is long and varied ("it's been a kaleidoscope kind of career") with the peaks ("Tootsie") and valleys ("Ghost Dad") of any journeyman actor. But Ebersole never really found her niche in L.A. Tall and fair -- in person she resembles actresses Joan Allen and Jessica Lange -- Ebersole's musical and dramatic skills perhaps couldn't be contained anywhere else but the stage.

So, six years ago, Ebersole decided to return to New York (she lives in Maplewood, N.J., with her husband [Bill Moloney], mother, three kids and many pets).

The move agreed with her, and Ebersole found success back on Broadway, playing the hostess in "Dinner at Eight" ("I love that show; I wanted to do it forever") and winning the Tony in 2001 for the revival of "42nd Street." But in the dual role of Edith and Edie Bouvier Beale, the socialites turned recluses who spend their days indulging in music, memories and regrets, she found "the role of a lifetime."

"It is the most demanding role I've ever done. Oh, God, yes," she says, running her hand over her face and through her hair. "I'm always on stage." Both roles require different but equally strong singing voices. By act two, in which Ebersole plays the more showy part of "Little" Edie, the first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, the show's intense themes of "devotion, loyalty, responsibility, non-conformity and freedom" is at full throttle.

Mother of 3

One would have to feel somewhat youthful to be the mother of three children under 10.

"That's what keeps it real and keeps me sane," she says. "But it's a terrible sacrifice; that's the worst part of doing a Broadway show. I'm never home to tuck them in at night. They don't want to see ["Grey Gardens"]. It's what takes me away from them and they don't like it. Neither do I."

Mothering adopted children is one thing she shares with friend Rosie O'Donnell; the other is a love of the Broadway stage. Rosie routinely talked up "Grey Gardens" and Ebersole's performance, along with many others, daily on "The View." "That's the worst part of her leaving ["The View"]. She was our one Broadway advocate," Ebersole says. "She was the only person on TV who talked about Broadway."

At the Walter Kerr Theater, the well-wishers streaming backstage night after night include not just celebrities, but the visitors who remember Ebersole from grade school and high school. "They're people I haven't seen, literally, since I was 16," she says. "It's amazing and wonderful."

Ebersole will attend the Tony Awards with her husband, and very likely tear up as the multiple nominations for "Grey Gardens" are announced. Regardless of who wins, it is her personal triumph, she says, "for being on my purpose, the purpose of work -- and the universe has responded in kind."

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