My Marlene
My Marlene is a one woman show about a cross-dressing bisexual pioneer from Hollywood’s golden era: Marlene Dietrich. The play is an immersive and confessional theatre experience in which the audience is transformed into the battle-hardened soldiers that Marlene Dietrich entertained on the French Front during the closing years of World War II.
With imagery evoking German Expressionism and the dynamic days of the birth of Cinema, it tells the story of Marlene’s life and times. The period songs, with their acidic, cynical tone, so characteristic of that Weimar Decadence, serve to highlight Marlene’s status as an erotic pioneer with her gender ambiguity.
Here on the front lines, Marlene unveils her contradicting faces: selfless war hero, tyrannical mother, unrestrained lover, and insatiable romantic. Interspersed with her songs, private letters and films, My Marlene seduces the audience while bombs fall all around.
Run time: 75 min
Developed at Theaterlab, Premiered at HOT Festival, Dixon Place 2018
Tjaša Ferme (writer and performer) is the Founder and Artistic Director of Transforma Theatre Inc., dedicated to creating interactive theatre experiences at the nexus of science, consciousness and ritual. She is the creator of The Female Role Model Project blending interactive theatre with neuroscience produced on Off-Broadway at the premier Art and Tech Center 3-Legged Dog, in New York in November 2018. They were also featured at the Ammerman Biennial of Arts and Technology 2018. She is the creator of a short film Ophelia’s Flip (Cannes Film Festival, 2012), a farce hit Cocktales-Confessions of a Nymphomaniac (The Cell, Abingdon Theatre, Art Basel Miami), an interactive solo show, Wild Child in the City, and a new play My Marlene. Wild Child In The City premiered in NYC (TheaterLab), filled houses on European Tours and received an Audience Choice Award at 46th TSD-Week of Slovenian Drama. Wild Child won a grant from Trust for Mutual Understanding for a tour at ITI-UNESCO MonoAkt festival in Kosovo, winning a Special Jury Prize, and “Northern Meetings” in Siberia. In Dec 2016 Ferme created a devised theatre piece about migrations West to West through the lens of the current refugee crisis in coproducion of Skogen, Sweden and Maska, Slovenia. Tjaša Ferme is a Slovenian National Film Award and Stane Sever classical stage award recipient. Currently her BCI video game on gender identity is being developed at City Tech, CUNY as a Tech Spring Production.
Jesse Edward Rosbrow (director) founded and was the artistic director of Theatre of the Expendable for five years. He was the director, producer, or both for all eleven of TotE’s productions, including two that were nominated for three NY Innovative Theatre Awards, including Outstanding Production of a Play (Cherry Docs, which he produced, and St Nicholas, which he directed and produced). In 2005, Jesse directed the NY premiere of Václav Havel’s at-that-time 30-year-old trilogy of one-acts, Audience, Unveiling, and Protest. He performed in the world premiere of the late Dario Fo and the late Franca Rame’s last play, The Story of Qu, in the 2015 Milan World Expo. Other companies Jesse has worked with include the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, Roundtable Ensemble, Oberon Theatre Ensemble, Six Part Productions, Dreamscape Theatre, Quo Vadimus Arts, Living Image Arts, Beacon Productions, the Factory at Hunter College, the Hunter College Graduate Theatre Club, and the Simon Studio Lab. He has studied with the Accademia dell’Arte, New York Theatre Workshop, Elevator Repair Service, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Jesse has a MA in Theatre from Hunter College and a BA in Drama, with a minor in Latin, from Vassar College.
Michael Hashim’s (Music Director and saxophonist) recording activity extends to film and television, including original music for the PBS American Playhouse production of Clifford Odet’s “Rocket to the Moon”, and solo saxophone heard throughout the film “I’m Not Rappaport” starring Walter Matthau. He was seen and heard on stage in the long-running Broadway musical “Song of Singapore” and Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Spiegleman’s “Drawn to Death: A Three-Panel Opera”.
Kuni Mikami (pianist) was born in Tokyo, Japan and immigrated to New York City in 1974 to pursue his dream as jazz pianist. In 1991, Lionel Hampton had invited Kuni Mikami to play the piano with his legendary band. Kuni played with the band until Hampton’s passing in August, 2002 at the age of 94. Kuni also performed with The Duke Ellington Orchestra at Birdland Jazz Club in New York City for 8 years. Currently he is performing and the Kuni Mikami Trio. As the co-founder of “iMimenation – Piano&Mime duo”, he had performed on tours in the Philippines, Brunei, Austria, Ecuador, Honduras and Dominican Republic with the support from the Japan Foundation.