Composer Scott Frankel to Conduct a Performance of Grey Gardens

Tony-nominated composer Scott Frankel will conduct the July 18 evening performance of his own show, Grey Gardens, at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre. The musical is scheduled to close on July 29.

A composer conducting his own music on Broadway is considered quite unusual, but Frankel is an experienced pianist and conductor. He first stood on a Broadway podium in 1987 as assistant conductor for the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods and last conducted on Broadway as Musical Director for William Finn's Falsettos in 1992. Grey Gardens marked his Broadway debut as a composer.

"Although it would be impossible for me to do a finer job than our superb musical director Larry Yurman, I'm personally excited about conducting a performance of Grey Gardens," Frankel said in a statement. "Since I began my New York career in the orchestra pit, to be conducting my own music on Broadway will not only take me full circle, but will be a total blast!"

Frankel had the original idea to turn the documentary Grey Gardens into a musical and optioned the rights to the film directly from filmmaker Albert Maysles. He wrote the score with lyricist Michael Korie. In addition to his Tony nomination, Frankel received the ASCAP Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award and the Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition.

Grey Gardens has generated two original cast recordings one for the world premiere off-Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons and one for the Broadway incarnation, both on PS Classics, as well as an upcoming documentary on the making of the musical, also by Maysles.