Expats Theatre to Present MARLENE by Pam Gems

Expats Theatre will present the live stage production of Marlene, a play with music by British playwright Pam Gems.  Marlene is directed by Vanessa Gilbert and opens Saturday, September 28th at 7:30 pm running through October 20th at Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lab 2, 1333 H St NE in Washington, DC. 

The play:  Marlene is set in the dressing room of a Paris theatre where an aging Marlene Dietrich is getting ready for a singing performance. In intimate backstage conversations, she blisters many of her Hollywood contemporaries, reveals delicate memories of her countless affairs with famous lovers, and flirts with her assistant Vivian who is struggling to navigate the moods and high expectations of “La Dietrich.” But we also get a glimpse of the human behind the icon as she fights the demons of addiction, the ravages of aging, the fear to fail her perfectionist standards, and the ghosts of Germany's Nazi past. Ending with a live concert presenting some of Marlene Dietrich's most popular songs, the play celebrates one of the most enigmatic and dazzling icons of the 20th century who defied many social and gender conventions of her time. 

Marlene Dietrich was born December 27, 1901 in Berlin, Germany. Her role as ‘Naughty Lola” in the 1930 movie The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought her international stardom. Von Sternberg secured her a contract with Paramount Pictures which launched her unparalleled career, directing her in The Blue Angel, Morocco, Shanghai Express, The Scarlett Empress, Blonde Venus and many others. With the rise of fascism in Germany, Marlene Dietrich renounced her German citizenship and became an American citizen in 1939. During WW II, she helped the U.S. government selling war bonds and joined an USO tour entertaining the troops and performing for them close to the front lines. Her commitment earned her the U.S. Medal of Freedom in 1947. Dietrich continued to make films until the 1960s, working with master directors such as Alfred Hitchcock (Stage Fright), Orson Welles (Touch of Evil), Stanley Kramer (Judgment at Nuremberg), and Billy Wilder (A Foreign Affair, Witness for the Prosecution). Reinventing herself thereafter, Marlene toured the stages of the world as singer and entertainer through the 1970s with music director Kurt Bacharach. She died in 1992 at aged 90, after having spent her last years as a recluse, living in isolation in her Paris apartment. 

The Playwright: Pam Gems (1925-2011) was a British playwright known for works “reconsidering the lives of iconic women” (The Guardian) such as the Olivier Award winning Piaf (about French chanteuse Edith Piaf), Marlene (Tony Award nomination for Siân Phillips), Christina (about the 17th century Queen of Sweden), and Mrs. Pat (about British actress Mrs. Patrick Campell), among others. While focusing on legendary historical figures, Gems' starkly written texts are no “bio-pic material” rooted in realism with a linear plot, but rather “snappy, tough scripts that often benefited from a Brechtian or minimalist staging” (The Independent). With a strong, emphatic feminist voice, placing her stories into a socio-political context, Gems' plays illuminate the darker, private sides of her heroines demythologizing the concept of the icon in our celebrity-driven society. This cultural sensitivity is evenly powerful in Gems' adaptions of European classics such as Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Ibsen's Ghost, Lorca's Yerma, and The Blue Angel (the film that catapulted Marlene Dietrich to world fame in 1930). With more than 78 plays, Pam Gems has brought us a new kind of biographical theatre and many of her works are accessible online (http://www.pamgemsplays.com). 

The Cast:  

Karin Rosnizeck as Marlene Dietrich

Valerie Adams Rigsbee as Vivian Hoffman

Hilary Kacser as Mutti 

Production and Creative Team:

Director: Vanessa Gilbert

Music Director:  Lucia LaNave

Music Advisor:  Achim Gieseler

Stage Manager: Alyssa Hill

Set Designer/Projection Designer: Tennessee Dixon

Lighting Designer: Ian Claar

Costume Designer: Donna Breslin

Sound and Technical Assistant: Laura Schlachtmeyer

Speech Coach: Hilary Kacser

Singing Coach: Jennifer Suess 

ExPats Theatre is a 501 (c) (3) venture founded in 2019 by Karin Rosnizeck to bring contemporary international plays to Washington D.C. Previous productions include: Surfacing by Russian-Austrian playwright Julya Rabinowich, Einstein's Wife by Serbian playwright Snežana Gnjidic (truncated by COVID in 2020, remount in 2022), Pankrác' 45 by Czech playwright Martina Kinská, Christmas Eve by German playwright and novelist Daniel Kehlmann, The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield and Migraaants by French- Romanian playwright Matéi Visniec as well as Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad. Expats Theatre is the recipient of the 2023 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company.

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