HAPPY SOLSTICE & GRATITUDE FOR '24

Hello you jangly jingle bells!

On this, the longest night of the year, I want to take a moment and shed some light on some of the things I'm grateful for in 2024.


SUFFS
The first song I sang from Shaina Taub's 2x Tony Award winning musical was in 2017 and I'm privileged to have been a part of it's incredible evolution since then. The people who brought this historic story to life are masters of their craft and I am honored to have spent this wild year with them. We run through January 5 at The Music Box on Broadway, grab those last minutes tix before we hang up our sashes!
TICKETS

MY LOVELY ENEMY
My first full length album dropped in May and I am bowled over by the love she's gotten!  We had a fabulous release concert at Joe's Pub, put out music videos for Albertine and the title track My Lovely Enemy, and Rolling Stone said "Grace McLean [has] one of the most suggestive voices in North America today," and "Her sophisticaed new [music] defies simple classifications, with more layers revealing themselves on repeated listens" and "With sophisticated and exuberant tracks where almost everything is musically possible, McLean's voice multiplies with echoes of Bjork and Kate Bush" and "Avant-garde pop...brilliant tracks." I say again, I have been bowled over and right into the gutter. Major thanks to Justin Goldner for producing and ECR's Blake Morgan for getting it out there and into your ears!
LISTEN/WATCH

PENELOPE
I continue to be so proud of this beautiful piece sprung from the head and heart of composer Alex Bechtel and sculpted by Eva Steinmetz's deft and nimble mind. We started the year with a beautiful production at Signature DC starring the stunning Jessica Phillips, and several other regional productions went up this year as well.  Here in NYC I joined my team to perform two thrilling concerts of the piece at Joe's Pub, and next year we're working to bring this baby back to town!

MARINA
The aforementioned deft and nimble Eva Steinmetz made a beautiful short film about a woman taking care of her ailing father, and because this comes from Eva's brilliant brain of course there's a lot of magic in it too. I was lucky enough to act in the film alongside sweet darling dear Peter Friedman, and I even got to score this sucker!  MARINA was one of five student films to receive a Gotham Award a few weeks ago, and because of that you'll be able to stream the film on Focus Features' website AND if you travel JetBlue the film will be watchable all the way up in the air through 2025!

hag
I'm so inlove with this wild musical I'm writing with lovely twisted hilarious Kate Douglas about decay, change, and facing our mortality.  We won a Pipeline Award for this piece and were able to put up a quick and dirty reading in June featuring some of my favorite actors on the planet. We're looking forward to continue to develop this beast next year, so stay tuned!

SCORING
I encouraged a new skill this year and discovered I really dig it.  In addition to scoring MARINA, I scored Kate Douglas's critically picked play THE APIARY at Second Stage, contributed music to a new thriller CAPTURE by my boss friend Jamie Effros, and wrote an epic little ditty for RED LIGHT TRAFFIC VIOLATION by Eliza Bent, one of my favorite weirdos.

NEXT UP...
If I've learned anything over the past few years it's that having expectations is a sure way to get them dashed.  Still, I want to let you know that while much of 2025 is up in the air, I am planning to share some new work with you, starting with a concert for A SHORT HISTORY OF WOMEN, a musical I'm developing with Kate Walbert who authored an exquisite novel of the same name.  You can expect to see us March 2nd at Greenwhich House Music School. More to come...




Never will I ever have a reason to doubt me,
Grace