Frida Kahlo’s Famous Painting: “El Suicidio de Dorothy Hale”

“Off-Broadway’s riveting mystical mystery”

In 1938, New York City was shocked when actress Dorothy Hale threw herself from the 16th floor of the Hampshire House Hotel on Central Park South. But was it suicide…or something more sinister ?

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Playwright Myra Bairstow weaves this thoughtful theory around the Frida Kahlo painting commissioned by Clare Boothe Luce, managing editor of Vanity Fair, to honor her fallen friend. As Frida begins to paint in the room where Dorothy lived, she’s haunted by whispers from the past–and from Dorothy herself. Slowly, a portrait of politics and power, blackmail and betrayal, love and loss is revealed in this mystical mystery.

Scenes From The Rise of Dorothy Hale Play

St. Lukes Theater 2007 – 2008, 308 West 46th Street, New York City

The Rise of Dorothy Hale Play

Original Cast