Emmy winner Michael Badalucco stars in the production directed by Penny Templeton. Joining Badalucco onstage are Patrick Boll, Sarita Choudhury, Laura Koffman, Mark LaMura and Sarah Wynter.

Hale, a film actress once married to famed American muralist Gardner Hale, threw herself from her 16th-story apartment on Central Park South in 1938. Hale's death at 33 was ruled a suicide.

The Rise Of Dorothy Hale, according to press notes, "explores the life and death of Dorothy Hale through the creative process of Frida Kahlo and enables the contradictions in history to stand face to face. Did the alleged suicide note that Clare Boothe Luce claims to have received even exist? Why did Harry Hopkins involve the White House and two key players of the Roosevelt Administration to handle damage control around Dorothy’s death? What possible secrets did Dorothy know about Harry Hopkins and Clare Luce before she was found dead? Was Dorothy Hale's death a suicide or a murder made to look like a suicide? Decades later the story of Dorothy Hale became legendary when Mrs. Luce confirmed that she had commissioned Frida Kahlo to paint Dorothy in November 1938 and intended the painting to be a beautiful portrait as a gift for Dorothy's grieving mother. Clare was so horrified when she received Frida's rendition of Dorothy's death that she placed the canvas in a storage area for nearly thirty years before donating it 'anonymously' to a museum in the 1960's."

The Rise Of Dorothy Hale features set design by Josh Iacovelli and lighting design by Graham Kindred. Producing partners are Judson Moore, Paolo Montalban, Asset Management Partners, Edmund Gaynes and Aridyne Productions.

The open-ended run officially opens Sept. 30 at St. Lukes Theater. St. Lukes is located at 308 West 46th Street in Manhattan. Tickets are available by calling (212) 239-6200. For more information visit www.dorothyhale.com.