LOVE IS BLONDE is a play based on the novel Blonde (2000) by Joyce Carol Oates.
A best-selling historical (though not biographical) novel on the life of Marilyn Monroe, 
Blonde was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize (2001) and the National Book Award (2000).


BLONDE: THE INSPIRATION

Blonde is the penetrating story of a beautiful girl from California, born Norma Jean Mortensen, (a name her mother subsequently changed to Norma Jeane Baker—Norma, as in Norma Thalberg; Jeane as Jeane Harlow), who dreams of becoming a successful and popular actress. Norma Jeane is unique but not alone in her desires and aspirations, as the world seems to want the same thing for her. With the help of trusted friends and the powers that be in the ruthless entertainment industry that is “Hollywood” of the Fifties and Sixties, Norma Jeane goes on to become not only a cultural icon and quintessential sex symbol, but also an actress respected for her talents.
 

LOVE IS BLONDE: THE PLAY

The Norma Jeane at the center of Love Is Blonde is a shy girl, brought up in foster homes, who has a mentally unstable and financially insecure mother, and an unknown but desperately longed-for father. Striving for success out of financial and emotional necessity, this shy Norma Jeane doubles as the seemingly outgoing Marilyn, for whom fame is the only way to see and be seen.

A three-act play about the life of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most important icons of the twentieth century, Love Is Blonde tells the story of a simple girl who redeems her poor, unfortunate roots, and her anonymous birth, through a voluptuous body craved by everyone, from powerful and influential men—icons in their own right—to a grasping and rapacious society. Love Is Blonde tells the story of Marilyn’s struggle to be loved and recognized as a human being and a woman, showing how she held sway over men, and society, during her short life and beyond.

Love Is Blonde is fundamentally a play about conflict and struggle. By shining an exacting light on Marilyn’s struggle to be loved and recognized as an adult, as a woman, as she never was as a child, the play gives voice to the lasting conflict between the shy California girl, Norma Jeane, and the perfect creature known to men, the world, as Marilyn Monroe. In the end, this beautiful blond creature, Marilyn, perfect yet flawed, gives Norma Jeane something that, deep down, we all desire: the gift of immortality.

If Love Is Blonde is the story of Marilyn, it is also the story of all of us. It is a story of inspiration; a story about what we are willing, if not able, to do to overcome our past, our present and ourselves; and, ultimately, a story about how we become the person we truly desire to be.
 

LOVE IS BLONDE: A DEVELOPMENT HISTORY 

The Blonde Actress ia a play written by Argia Coppola based on the novel Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, held its first open reading at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday November 6th, 2014 in New York City, at the New York offices of AllianceBernstein.

The table reading was hosted by Adam Sansiveri, Principal at AllianceBernstein and a Broadway producer.

Following revisions to the script, a second informal reading of the play was held on April 26th, 2015 for a select group of individuals including potential initial investors and a potential producer.  Another four table readings were held later the same year, and an additional reading took place at the Shelter's Studio on Broadway.