“Penelope” is at Edinburgh Fringe Festival through August 30.
Penelope: Live at Joe’s Pub available through Joy Machine Records.
“Always be a first rate version of yourself, instead of a second rate version of somebody else.”
Called “phenomenal” by The New York Times, “electrifying” by The Huffington Post and a “sly-eyed musical powerhouse” by New York Magazine, Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actress-singer-writer-teacher. In addition to performing on Broadway (Suffs; Bad Cinderella; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), Off Broadway (New Group, MCC, LCT3, Public, La MaMa, Vineyard, among others) and TV/film (The Other Two - HBO; The First Lady - Showtime), Grace also makes time for her acclaimed original music. Rolling Stone called the “avant garde pop” songs “brilliant” on her debut full length album “My Lovely Enemy.” Stephen Holden of the New York Times says “Ms. McLean’s voice [is] a flexible instrument with unexpected reserves of power...Behind her playful adventurousness lies a well of passion.”
Grace’s first original musical In The Green was commissioned and produced by Lincoln Center Theater and earned a Richard Rodgers Award for writing and a Lucille Lortel for her performance. Her work with composer Alex Bechtel and director Eva Steinmetz earned another Richard Rodgers Award for their piece Penelope. She composes music for theater (Lunar Eclise, The Apiary) and film (Marina, Our Mine - Best Score from Brooklyn Film Festival and Athens International Film Festival). Other honors include a Vivace Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and she is a Broadway Women’s Fund Woman to Watch. Her band performed for the Lincoln Center American Songbook two years in a row and she toured Pakistan and Russia with the US State Department as an artistic ambassador.
Grace has taught at NYU, The New School, Northwestern, UNCC, Orange County School of the Arts, New York Youth Symphony, among others. She has developed work at Manhattan School of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project, The O’Neill, Johnny Mercer Writer’s Colony at Goodspeed, The PiTCH, CAP21, The Civilians R&D Group, and MacDowell. The original cast recording for In The Green is available on Ghostlight Records and “Penelope: Live at Joe’s Pub” is available on Joy Machine Records. Original music “My Lovely Enemy,” “Natural Disaster” and “Make Me Breakfast” are steaming now. @thatgracemclean www.gracemclean.com