Becoming Marilyn Monroe
Not an exhibition about Marilyn Monroe. A question: what did it take to become her?
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson. The distance between those two names isn’t a biography. It’s a question, and the world premiere of Becoming Marilyn Monroe, honouring her 100th birthday, puts visitors right inside it.
At Lichthalle MAAG in Zurich, the experience doesn’t explain who she was. It asks what it cost to become her.
What we built
TSC delivered the production design: scenic, audiovisual and technical. A reimagined 1950s film studio where every surface carries the narrative. Projection mapping. Original soundscapes. Light, sound and scenography working together until the distance between visitor and icon disappears. Directed and creatively led by Mitch Sebastian. The doors opened on 27 March 2026, after months of production, room by room, surface by surface, since late summer 2025.
The challenge
Translate a human being, not a brand, into a spatial experience. Let visitors feel the weight and the light of a life both more extraordinary and more difficult than the myth, built around one question: what did it take to become Marilyn?
“By the last room people aren’t looking at the icon anymore. They’re sitting with Norma Jeane, and some of them cry.”
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Designed by
Credits
Production Design, Scenic, Audiovisual & Technical
The Storytelling Company
Directed and creatively led by
Mitch Sebastian
Producer/Executive Producer
Marc Routh
Producer/Executive Producer, Broadway Asia
Simone Genatt
Co-Producer
Bergamot Front Row Fund
Co-Producer
Broadway Immersive Entertainment
Project Producer
Rod Kaats
Zurich Presenter + Promoter
Darko Soolfrank & MAAG Moments
Soundtrack Compositions and Immersive Audio Production
KLING KLANG KLONG
Produced in Association with
The Estate of Marilyn Monroe LLC
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