The production will begin performances June 3 for a run of 11 performances only, through June 13 only.
Featuring original music from Monroe's movies and performances as diverse as "Happy Birthday (Mr. President)" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and a company of 15 dancers, Marilyn stars British ballerina Zara Deakin in the title role. Deakin trained at The Royal Ballet School. Sir Frederick Ashton created the ballet Nursery Suite for her in honor of Queen Elizabeth's birthday. She danced with the English National Ballet and Deutsche Oper Berlin before joining The Peter Schaufuss Company as a founding member, appearing in leading roles in all the companies' 19 productions. In Divas, which had its West End premiere in 2008, Deakin created the role of Marlene Dietrich. In the production Diana - The Princess, she portrayed the title role.
According to press materials, Marilyn is the story of a childhood without a father and love; a schizophrenic mother who doesn't want her child to exist and even tries to strangle her as an infant; and an abused young girl who marries at 16 to avoid being sent to an orphanage. Marilyn's career as an actress was to span just 16 years but featured starring roles in such classics as "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "How to Marry a Millionaire," "The Seven Year Itch" and "Some Like It Hot." She made a total of 29 films — 24 of them in the first eight years of her career. However, the typecasting of her "dumb blonde" persona limited her career prospects, and she made more headlines for her private life, including marriages to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller. The final years of her life were marked by illness, personal problems and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have ever since been the subject of conjecture and wild conspiracy theories. In 1999, Marilyn Monroe was ranked as the sixth-greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Monroe has previously been the subject of two different short-lived West End and Broadway musicals, both seen in 1983: Stephanie Lawrence played the title role in Marilyn! at London's Adelphi Theatre, while Alyson Reed played the title role in Marilyn – An American Fable at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre.
Schauffus was an international ballet star in the 1970s and 1980s who became artistic director of the London Festival Ballet (now called the English National Ballet) in 1984. He was the artistic director of the Deutsch Oper Ballet in Berlin from 1990 to 1994, when he became the artistic director of his native Royal Danish Ballet. In 1997 he formed his own company. To book tickets contact the box office at 0844 412 4658 or visit www.nimaxtheatres.com/marilyn.
