Sept 28-Oct 20, 2024 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center 

 

“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, 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.

 

 

Karin Rosnizeck as Marlene Dietrich

Valerie Adams Rigsbee as Vivian Hoffman

Hilary Kacser as Mutti

Gary DuBreuil as French Stage Manager

 

 

Director:  Vanessa Gilbert

Music Director:  Lucia LaNave

Music Advisor:  Achim Gieseler

Singing Coach:  Jennifer Suess

Stage Manager:  Amberrain Andrews

Set Designer/Projections:  Tennessee Dixon

Lighting/Intimacy Choreographer:  Ian Claar

Costume Director:  Donna Breslin

Sound and Technical Assistant:  Laura Schlachtmeyer

Speech Coach:  Hilary Kacser

 

Anne Valentino, Maryland Theatre Guide:  “Karin Rosnizeck is the show” …. [an] intriguing journey of one very complicated woman who wants to give everything but who also wants to keep certain parts of herself forever hidden.”

Read review at:  https://mdtheatreguide.com/2024/10/theatre-review-marlene-presented-by-expats-theatre-at-atlas-performing-arts-center/

 

Debbie Minter Jackson, DC Theater Arts:  “Watching Karin Rosnizeck inhabit the role is as good as it gets …. It’s a remarkable depiction …. ExPat’s Marlene is an example of the extraordinary talent tucked away in small spaces. It’s worth the trip to catch.”

Read review at:  https://dctheaterarts.org/2024/10/01/extraordinary-talent-depicts-a-legend-in-marlene-at-expats-theatre/

 

Erin Tarpley, Theatre Bloom: Rosnizeck “does a marvelous job of bringing the legend of Marlene Dietrich to life….

[she] becomes Marlene personified in her musical performances.”

Read review at https://www.theatrebloom.com/2024/10/marlene-at-expats-theatre/

 

Mary Lincer, Broadway World:  [Rosnizeck] “sings impeccably in three languages … 

she never ‘imitates’ Dietrich. She simply sings as if she were Marlene Dietrich.” 

Read review at https://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/Review-MARLENE-at-ExPats-Theatre-20240929R

Teresa Castracane Photography

About Marlene Dietrich

 

Dietrich was born December 27, 1901 in Berlin, Germany. She performed on that city’s stages during the 1920s. But it was her debut as “Lola-Lola” in the 1930 movie, The Blue Angel, that brought her international stardom. She moved to America that year with the encouragement of director Josef von Sternberg and Paramount Pictures. She renounced her German citizenship and became an American citizen in 1939. Shortly thereafter, she helped the U.S. government sell war bonds, did several tours entertaining American troops between 1942 and 1945, and spoke out against Nazi aggression. Dietrich received the 1947 U.S. Medal of Freedom for her work entertaining troops. She toured the world through the 1970s and died in 1992 at the age of 90.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pam Gems

 

Gems is a British playwright who lived from 1925 to 2011. Two of her plays (Marlene and Stanley) were nominated for Tony Awards.  She also gained acclaim for her 1978 musical, Piaf. According to the Guardian, she is known for “reconsidering the lives of iconic women” and for having a theatrical voice that is “salty, earthy, raunchy and never boring”.

 

More Information about Marlene Dietrich

 

Biography.com, “Marlene Dietrich Was Known For Her Sultry, Sex Appeal,” September 14, 2022

https://www.biography.com/actors/marlene-dietrich

 

YouTube, “No Angel:  A Life of Marlene Dietrich,” 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvkQhzhZJE&t=1930s 

 

YouTube, “Marlene Dietrich Videos”

https://www.youtube.com/user/marlenedietrichvideo: