Still Marilyn, BadApple Theatre Company, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, April 1 to 5

ONLY this week has writer and director Kate Bramley realised the link between her four plays: history and mystery. Kate's latest work, Still Marilyn, will complete its tour next week in York, where she runs BadApple Theatre Company from St Mary's.

In keeping with her first play, 1998's Amy Johnson, and subsequent works Marlowe, Meet Raymond Chandler and Fighting The Tide, Still Marilyn is a new work "based on the lives of interesting historical personalities", in this case Marilyn Monroe.

"I hadn't noticed before now, but there's a unifying theme of history and mystery in the plays," says 26-year-old Kate.

"Even though Marilyn was a much bigger subject, she had something similar to the other people I had looked at, and that was the element of mystery. Interestingly, that is mystery not only in terms of how these people died but also in terms of people trying to get inside what happened in their lives. There's a lot of ambivalence."

Still Marilyn, the first touring show in the Theatre Royal's Studio since its refurbishment, is a biographical drama about the ultimate movie icon. Big Hollywood star, big challenge.

"The suggestion to do a play on Marilyn came from one of the actors in the last show - as has happened each time! - and though I was interested in her, my initial reaction was 'Oh no', but then I started reading her autobiography."

Kate found herself drawn to photographs of Monroe. "I was fascinated by the photography because I think that's why she's endured. She had these wonderful photographers who took these enduring images and she had such fond relationships with them," she says.

"Whichever photographer, they all talk with fondness of how giving she was in her photographs. She seemed to be someone who went beyond needing photographs for publicity but actually thrived on working with photographers, and I thought there was something exciting in that."

Kate chose not to do a life-and-death biography but a snapshot, picking up the story in the 1950s with Marilyn at the height of her Hollywood fame, framed by millions of cameras.

Kate decided to peel away the starlet glamour to look at the "struggles of an intelligent woman, fighting for recognition as a serious actress". "Having decided I would do the play, the other major decision was whether to talk about her death or her life and very early on, I decided I wanted to talk about her life," she says.

So much has been written about Marilyn, what can Kate bring to the library table? "I don't think I was ever arrogant enough to say I could find anything new or definitively right, so I decided to isolate a time period, and look at her life against what was happening at the time," says Kate.

"What I wanted to do with this play - which I end just before her death - was to make people look at her story and think 'Wow, did that happen?' because she had such an amazing life. I wanted to show respect to her achievements as well as her enduring beauty."

That Still Marilyn title encapsulates all the elements of the play. "It's Still Marilyn because she is still Marilyn. Then there are film stills, and 'still' as in at peace, not in a death sense but in trying to reflect some of the positive qualities she had," says Kate.

The play features such characters as Art, based on Arthur Miller, and Jack, as in John F Kennedy, but at its epicentre is Marilyn, played by Gilly Cohen.

"That was a very big decision. I spent three months on the casting, and it came down to two choices: one actress who looked like Marilyn, and Gilly, who looked nothing like her but was more striking, had this comic range and dramatic intensity," says Kate.

As testament to BadApple's rise, Kate's company received its largest injection of project-funding - £21,000 - for this production; but now she faces more decision making.

Seven months on and off this year, she will be on the road playing violin and singing in Jez Lowe's band; she is a freelance theatre director too, having made her reputation as assistant director at Hull Truck Theatre, and her production of John Godber's Perfect Pitch will open at the Haymarket, Basingstoke, in June.

"I joke that playing with Jez is how I make my living; writing plays is a hobby," says Kate. "The BadApple company is totally dependent on project funding from the Regional Arts Lottery Programme, and I'd like to think that the latest sum is a compliment to the work we do. However, because of our limitations, we don't have a full-time administrator, so I have to do that too, and it's coming to the point where we really have to assess the company's future."

For now it is Still Marilyn, but after that, will it be still BadApple too? Let's hope so.

Still Marilyn, BadApple Theatre Company, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, April 1 to 5. Performances: 7.45pm, plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:51 Friday, March 28, 2003