Everyone loves a good showbiz story and the inaugural offering of ICT’s 2024 season leaves no one in the theater wanting.
The world premiere of “Marilyn, Mom and Me” by award winning playwright and director Luke Yankee delivers the goods in ways that you don’t see coming, surpassing all expectations and pre-conceived notions of what you think the show might be about.
Audiences can be forgiven for thinking that this might be one more example of a Hollywood tell-all biopic complete with celebrity impressions but it couldn’t be farther from that scenario in its explorations of insecurity, loneliness and closure that never comes, all under the unforgiving microscope of fame and glamour. The play details the friendship of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe and her co-star Eileen Heckart during the filming of the 1956 film “Bus Stop”, as related by Heckart to her son Luke Yankee.
The play never drags but moves deftly forward from the start, propelled by a stellar cast under the excellent and brisk direction of playwright Yankee in this fascinating auto-biographical work.