{"id":604624,"date":"2026-09-03T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/604624\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T15:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:00:13","slug":"new-musical-to-give-intimate-portrait-of-marilyn-monroe-and-arthur-millers-marriage-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/604624\/","title":{"rendered":"New musical to give intimate portrait of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller\u2019s marriage | Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was lampooned as the union of the \u201chourglass\u201d and the \u201cegghead\u201d \u2013 the marriage, in the summer of 1956, between Hollywood superstar Marilyn Monroe<\/a> and Pulitzer-winning playwright Arthur Miller. Now, a new stage musical is to give a nuanced and intimate portrait of that famous relationship, treat each as trailblazers in their own way and reveal parallels between the volatile state of the US during the 50s \u201cred scare\u201d and now.<\/p>\n

The production, which opens next autumn at Leicester\u2019s Curve<\/a>, is called Misfits Together, a reference to the film Miller wrote for Monroe that was released shortly after their divorce in 1961. It is a foray into musical theatre by two indie musicians, Dan Smith of the band Bastille and Ralph Pelleymounter from To Kill a King, who have recorded the score as a studio album. The first track, Oh America, is out on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Smith and Pelleymounter had originally envisaged it as a musical about 50s America. They shared their songs with Charlotte Bogard Macleod, who has written the book, and had long been fascinated by the relationship that caught the public\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n

Arthur Miller, Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe at the Savoy hotel, London, in 1956. Photograph: PA<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d always wanted to explore Arthur Miller<\/a> and how he had this integrity that cut through everything,\u201d she said. \u201cHe refused to name names [before the House Un-American Activities Committee] and he stood up at a huge personal cost. When we started doing research, we just couldn\u2019t believe that Marilyn was so central to this. She was supporting him. She had her own production company. And we were thinking, why hasn\u2019t this been talked about or celebrated?\u201d Each empowered the other, she added \u2013 \u201cfighting [the anti-communist senator Joe] McCarthy or fighting misogyny\u201d.<\/p>\n

Smith said that the musical would deal with how Monroe was pigeonholed. \u201cHere\u2019s a working-class woman who was in foster care and created the persona of Marilyn Monroe and became one of the most successful and known people ever in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd still at the height of her success and fame, she was constantly questioned and denigrated and patronised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her many achievements, Monroe had been \u201creduced and reduced and reduced\u201d to the image of a bombshell, Pelleymounter said. The musical, he added, would look at how her fame eclipsed Miller\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Presented with Tila Arts, Misfits Together will be staged by Curve\u2019s artistic director, Nikolai Foster, who said the company had been watching Monroe\u2019s films for research. He praised her \u201cinnate understanding of the art of film-making\u201d and \u201cthe craft of acting\u201d. Foster said the musical showed the couple\u2019s lives in such closeup that at times during the workshops they almost forgot that the main characters were two of the 20th century\u2019s most famous cultural figures.<\/p>\n

From left, Curve chief executive Chris Stafford, librettist Charlotte Bogard Macleod, Dan Smith, Ralph Pelleymounter and Curve artistic director Nikolai Foster. Photograph: Phil Tragen<\/p>\n

Pelleymounter said he had returned to the phrase \u201chistory doesn\u2019t repeat, but it rhymes\u201d throughout their work on the project. Seventy years after the red scare, othering was still being used to create \u201cfear and anger in order to maintain the status quo\u201d in the US, he said. One song written for the musical expresses Miller and film director Elia Kazan<\/a>\u2019s frustration at \u201cseeing politicians say things on the news that are so blatantly not true, that are manipulative and scaremongering\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other famous figures in the musical include Laurence Olivier, Monroe\u2019s co-star in The Prince and the Showgirl. \u201cHe says: \u2018Stop trying to act, just be sexy,\u2019\u201d said Bogard Macleod. \u201cHis one note is: \u2018Be sexy!\u2019 He was frustrated with her wanting lots of takes, and she was just trying to get it right. But then when you see the film, she\u2019s the one that shines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith and Pelleymounter wrote more than three dozen songs for the musical and have been whittling them down to under half that number. The pair, longtime friends, \u201chave always loved writing narrative songs and using songwriting to dive into character and story and history and culture\u201d, said Smith. \u201cI want the songs to be epic and instant and nuanced and move the story along, to sweep across history and then zoom into someone\u2019s psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n

One song takes surprising inspiration from Eminem\u2019s hit Stan, as it tells an \u201cincredibly complex story via their correspondence\u201d. Pelleymounter said they had also drawn inspiration from famous photos of the pair. \u201cBicycle rides have definitely made it into at least one song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelleymounter and Smith will be following in the footsteps of fellow indie musician Passenger (Michael David Rosenberg), who recently had a musical theatre success with the Olivier award-nominated<\/a> The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry<\/a>. Smith has also written the music and lyrics for Young Romantics, a musical in development whose characters include Mary Shelley and Lord Byron.<\/p>\n

Misfits Together will run at Curve\u2019s Studio theatre from 4 September until 2 October 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was lampooned as the union of the \u201chourglass\u201d and the \u201cegghead\u201d \u2013 the marriage, in the summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-604624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}