A Ballet Bombshell: Bringing Marilyn Monroe’s Life to the Stage at Oregon Ballet Theatre

Actress, singer, bombshell, icon. For years, fans and historians alike have asked the same question: Who really was Marilyn Monroe?

For Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director Dani Rowe, that question fuels her newest ballet, Marilyn, debuting April 4–13 at Portland’s Newmark Theatre. A co-production with BalletMet and Tulsa Ballet, the full-length explores the complicated life of Hollywood’s most famous blonde, unpacking the person behind the image. Rowe has called upon a team of several frequent collaborators to bring Monroe’s story to the stage, including composer Shannon Rugani, costume and set designer Emma Kingsbury, set and lighting designer David Finn, and manager Garen Scribner. Portland-based couture fashion expert Adam Arnold provided additional help as a cutter and draper for some of Monroe’s most iconic looks, including her gowns in the films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and The Seven Year Itch (1955).

The idea for Marilyn was born from a conversation between Rowe and Kingsbury after Kim Kardashian appeared at the 2022 Met Gala wearing Monroe’s iconic “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress. Shortly after Rowe joined OBT in 2023, she met with Portland philanthropist and fine art collector Jordan Schnitzer, who shared with her his collection of screen prints from Andy Warhol’s Monroe series. Schnitzer explains that Warhol’s print of Monroe, created after her death in 1962, is one of the most well-known images in the world. “Ultimately, it’s Warhol’s image of her that cemented her legacy,” he says in an interview with Pointe.

While researching other Warhol pieces, Rowe was especially struck by his 1962 Marilyn Diptych—its juxtaposition of vivid, potent colors to faded black-and-white copies, she says, indicated to her a stark duality and layeredness to Monroe’s character. “Everybody has our light and our dark,” she states. “And what we present is different in different spaces and moments throughout our life.”

Rowe decided to use that diptych’s concept to frame her structure for the ballet’s libretto, which unfolds chronologically throughout Monroe’s life while weaving in portions of her childhood in 1960s Los Angeles. Child Norma Jeane, as Monroe was born, is danced by two young Oregon Ballet Theatre school students. Other named characters include an older Norma Jeane, Marilyn, her mother, her psychoanalyst, and several of Monroe’s love interests, including James Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and one character Rowe has created to represent both John F. and Robert Kennedy.

In addition, Rowe has integrated throughout the ballet what she calls the “fedora men,” shadowy, faceless figures who loom in the background and, as Kingsbury explains, nod toward the constant influence of men in Monroe’s life—and its potential psychological effects. While researching Monroe back in 2023, Rowe sensed a thread connecting the events of the star’s life: searching for unconditional love.

“I think it’s something that everybody deserves, and it’s something that, fortunately, most people receive by way of their parents. But when you don’t have that, what does that mean for the rest of our life?” says Rowe. “She never knew her father. So one could question whether Marilyn’s search for love and connection through the many men in her life was a search for that father figure.”

The other crucial element in portraying Monroe’s life onstage is fashion, says Kingsbury. As costume designer, one of her goals has been to pay homage to William Travilla, the designer behind the actress’ most memorable looks. “These designs live in this world of iconography, and the cult of celebrity,” she says, adding that most will be immediately recognizable to audience members. (Think: Monroe standing on the subway grate wearing the white halter dress in a promo for The Seven Year Itch, or the pink strapless gown from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.) “We’re touching on those commercial moments of Marilyn as a stark contrast to the other sides of her life that were so private and so incredibly painful.”

For the scenic design, Kingsbury and her co-designer, David Finn, created an adaptable space inspired by Los Angeles and the Hollywood studios and soundstages where Marilyn spent her working life (especially the Gentlemen set), with moving parts that allow for transitions between different scenes. The adaptability of the set also creates a “liminal” effect, Kingsbury says—another way the themes of layers and iconography show up in the ballet.

By blending pop art and cinematic starriness with a more troubled story underneath, Rowe aims to encapsulate Monroe as both a person and an icon. “The biggest thing for me has been really exploring that line between image and reality, performance or truth,” she says. “And the craziness of being human. That’s what connects us all. Even Marilyn.”