Tony Winner Mark Medoff's New Marilyn Monroe Play Gets Readings at Birdland This Week

Rob Hinderliter and Dominick LaRuffa, Jr. of R&D Theatricals (All the Way, Deaf West's Spring Awakening, An American In Paris) in association with Dennis D'Amico (NOVA, the classical music of Sir Paul McCartney) are presenting an invitation-only reading of Marilee & Baby Lamb: The Assassination of an American Goddess today and tomorrow, January 21st & 22nd, at New York City's iconic Birdland Jazz Club, following its critically acclaimed run in Las Cruces, NM, this past fall.

Directed by playwright Mark Medoff (Children of a Lesser God, When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?), the cast of eight includes Frank Dicopoulos (Guiding Light),Lena Georgas (Kingdom Hospital, Ray Donovan), Chris Payne Gilbert (All My Sons (The Geffen)), Aaron Hernandez (Aunt Raini, Recreational Living, premieres), Jessica Medoff (Film: The Heart Outright), Edward Stanley (Sleep No More), Erin Sullivan (Hazel, nat'l tour: Hairspray), and Robert Wuhl (Arliss).

The play is a dramatic depiction of recorded interviews and conversations producer Dennis D'Amico had with Lena Pepitone over a three-year period of time. Lena was Marilyn's best friend, confidant and seamstress for the last six-and-half years of her life. Medoff's subsequent play adds startling insight into the twilight years and death of an American icon. This is a Marilyn story untold - now revealed.

Mr. Medoff adds, "The Marilyn I've invented is a permutation rarely considered credible. The impetus once I got into creating the lives of Lena and Marilyn was the life they lived together. The love and confidences they shared remained secret until Dennis [D'Amico] sat down with Lena in her eighties, toward the end of her life. The revealed secrets have been reinforced by a source who, as a boy, was very close to certain decisions made that affected Marilyn directly. Those who made those decisions are people our culture has held in esteem for over half a century, but were, like so many of our ostensible heroes, sadly and pitifully unworthy of adoration."