“Marilyn, Mom & Me” is Luke Yankee’s deeply personal comic drama about unraveling his complicated relationship with his mother Eileen Heckart, the renowned Broadway and Oscar-winning actress. Heckart, right, worked with Monroe, left, on the 1956 film “Bus Stop.” In “Marilyn, Mom & Me,” Yankee believes that if he can get his mother to open up about Monroe, maybe it will make her a more sympathetic mother — or at least help him connect with her on another level. Photos: Luke Yankee
“Marilyn, Mom & Me” is Luke Yankee’s deeply personal comic drama about unraveling his complicated relationship with his mother Eileen Heckart, the renowned Broadway and Oscar-winning actress.
The play will have its world premiere next month and open International City Theatre’s 2024 season.
Yankee, who identifies as gay, is the production’s playwright and director. In 2006, he wrote her biography “Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart.”
“In 1956, when Marilyn Monroe was cast as the lead in the film ‘Bus Stop,’ she was the biggest star in the world,” Yankee, 63, said in a statement. “She had taken the previous year off to study with Lee Strasberg and had become the poster child for ‘method’ acting, where an actor has to experience every moment truthfully.”
Heckart played Monroe’s best friend, Vera.
“As a part of her newly discovered style of acting, Marilyn was determined to make my mother her best friend — both on screen and off,” Yankee said. “Reluctantly, Eileen went along with it for the sake of the film and found herself emotionally entrenched in Marilyn’s life.
“My mother loved to talk about her career… except when it came to Marilyn,” he said. “Whenever she would do so, she would get very quiet and change the subject. If pressed, she would burst into tears. No one else she worked with had this effect on her.”
In the story, Yankee believes that if he can get his mother to open up about Monroe, maybe it will make her a more sympathetic mother — or at least help him connect with her on another level.
Eileen Heckart
Heckart, known for her no-nonsense attitude, began her Broadway career as the assistant stage manager and an understudy for “The Voice of the Turtle” in 1943. Her credits include “Picnic,” “The Bad Seed,” “A View from the Bridge,” “A Memory of Two Mondays,” “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” “A Family Affair,” “And Things That Go Bump in the Night,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “Butterflies Are Free,” “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running,” and “The Cemetery Club.”
Heckart won the 1953 Theatre World Award for “Picnic.” She received Tony Award nominations for “Butterflies Are Free,” “Invitation to a March,” and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.”
In 2000, at age 81, she appeared off-Broadway in Kenneth Lonergan’s “The Waverly Gallery.” For her performance, Heckart won the Drama Desk Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Drama League Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award.
That same year, Heckart was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame and received an honorary Tony Award for lifetime achievement.
Oscar win, death
Heckart won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her work in the 1972 movie adaptation of “Butterflies Are Free” and was nominated in 1956 for her performance as the bereaved, besotted Mrs. Daigle in “The Bad Seed.” Heckart played both roles on Broadway.
Heckart died of lung cancer at her home in Norwalk, Connecticut, on Dec. 31, 2001, at the age of 82.
Luke Yankee
Yankee has directed three productions at International City Theatre: “Crimes of the Heart,” “Private Lives,” and “Shipwrecked.”
His latest book is “The Art of Writing for the Theatre.”It includes interviews with 18 Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights, lyricists and theater critics.
Yankee’s other plays include “The Last Lifeboat,” “A Place at Forest Lawn,” “The Jesus Hickey,” and The Man Who Killed the Cure.”
His off-Broadway directing credits include the political comedy, “High Infidelity” with John Davidson and Morgan Fairchild, Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” with Cynthia Nixon and David Canary.
On Broadway, he was assistant director on “Grind” starring Ben Vereen and “The Circle” with Sir Rex Harrision and Glynis Johns.
Yankee’s regional theater directing credits include “Driving Miss Daisy” with Eileen Heckart and “Nite Club Confidential” with Barbara Eden.
Tickets
“Marilyn, Mom & Me” will run from Feb. 16 to March 3 at International City Theatre.
