SIREN'S HEART Opens Off-Broadway on Anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's Death Today, 8/5

Following two successful Off-Off Broadway runs this past year (2011), SIREN'S HEART – Norma Jean & Marilyn in Purgatory ~ Norma Jean Sings Songs Marilyn Never Sang, will begin performances today, August 5th at 2pm at Actors Temple Theatre. The producer, ASCOLS, LLC, have set the opening for 7pm, August 5th (that same night), 50 years to the day, that Marilyn Monroe died.

Lissa Moira directs this one-woman show, written by Walt Stepp & starring Louisa Bradshaw*. Gregory Nissen serves as Musical Director & Arranger & Don Garverick choreographs. Set Design is by David "Zen" Mansley, Costume Design by Lytza Colon & Ryan Smith, with Lighting Design by William Giraldo.

SIREN'S HEARTis not the familiar victim narrative about Marilyn Monroe. She is still a living icon in the hearts & minds of millions, but in her own time, Norma Jean was suffocate by the mask of Marilyn & the weight of living up to that impossible ideal of beauty, crushed her. Imagines another place where we see Marilyn, or Norma Jean, as she might have been; as she wanted to be: the well-rounded, unhaunted person she couldn't be in her all-too-brief life.

Louisa Bradshaw has a career as an actress & chanteuse that spans the globe, starring in her own show at the premier Berlin cabaret & varieté venues, BarJeder Vernuff & the Chameleon. In NYC, she has worked with TONY Award-winning director/choreographer George Faison on If This Hat Could Talk & starred as the Countess Analise in the Lissa Moira/Richard West production, Who Murdered Love?

Director Lissa Moira is also a well-known playwright (Before God Was Invented, Time It Is) & the co-writer of Dead Canaries, a feature film starring Charles Durning, Dan Lauria, Dee Wallace-Stone & Joel Higgins. She is a Susan Smith Blackburn Nominee, OOBR Award Winner & a 2-time Jerome Foundation Grantee. Lissa & Richard West's DaDa noir musical comedy, Who Murdered Love? will be presented at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC, this August.

Walt Stepp had three plays produced at Altered Stages on 29th Street: Why We Shot Jack (2006), which re-tells the assassination from the point of view of Congressional conspirators; The View from K-Street Steakhouse (2007), which empathized with D.C. lobbyists who know that no amount of charm or cash alone can convince a Congressman, since ultimately, the party decide for its own mysterious reasons & Mark Twain's Blues, a play of Twainsongs (2008), wherein the author feels guilty about the ending of his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, because it was such a betrayal of his main characters, so Huck & Jim come back to help him rewrite it. Last year, Only Love Will Do, a gay/straight romantic comedy, had an extended run at Theater for the New City. Siren's Heart was inspired by his friend Richard Geha's, As Marilyn Lay Dying & that's when Norma Jean as a "woman of a certain age" came to him; not as the pretty teenager we all know, but as the more fulfilled person she always wanted to be.

The show opens today, August 5, 2012 at 7pm and plays Sunday @ 2pm & 7pm, Tuesday @ 7pm & Wednesday @ 2pm at the Actors Temple Theatre ~ 339 West 47th Street. Tickets are $39.50-$69.50 and can be reserved by visting www.telecharge.com or calling (212) 239-6200.