Bastille’s Dan Smith to co-write new musical about Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller

Curve has announced Misfits Together, a new musical about the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller.

The musical has music and lyrics by Bastille frontman Dan Smith and Ralph Pelleymounter, with a book by Charlotte Bogard Macleod. It will be directed by Curve artistic director Nikolai Foster and will have its world premiere in Curve’s Studio Theatre from 4 September to 2 October 2027.

Set in 1950s America, Misfits Together follows Monroe and Miller as they navigate their relationship alongside the pressures of Hollywood, political persecution and their respective careers.

The musical explores Monroe’s attempts to establish greater control over her career and public image, while Miller faces the impact of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist. The pair married in 1956 and remained together until 1961.

The production marks the first fully staged musical from Smith, who is best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Bastille. Smith has previously worked with Pelleymounter on Bastille’s Give Me the Future title track, as well as the western concept album Annie Oakley Hanging. Pelleymounter is the frontman of To Kill a King and has also co-written Rag’n’Bone Man’s “Perfume”.

Bogard Macleod, who is a BBC Drama Award nominee and winner of the Jerwood Arvon Playwriting Award, is the founder of The Script Factory. Her previous work includes Still Avoiding Tomorrow, an immersive theatre project featuring live music from Bastille, and The Story of Eglantyne Jebb: Founder of Save the Children.

The score has already been recorded as a studio album, produced by multi-instrumentalist Will Bloomfield. The album was recorded in 2025 at Bloomfield’s Dairy Studios in Brixton, with further sessions in Suffolk and at Abbey Road Studios. Guest performers include Moira Mack, Charlie Barnes and Ruti.

Smith and Pelleymounter said: “This is a 75-year-old story and yet it still feels so relevant: the polarising politics, the sexism, the threat of career-ending blacklists, all feel like they could be from today’s newspapers.”

They added that the project was their first experience writing songs for a musical and that they had “enjoyed the sense of freedom and play” involved in developing the new work.

Bogard Macleod said: “Marilyn’s luminous beauty dazzled, blinding the world to her true intelligence. Arthur Miller was the one person smart enough to see past the dazzle and understand Marilyn’s brilliance as an artist… We wrote Misfits Together to celebrate Marilyn and Arthur’s smart and sexy love story.”

It’s a second musical project for Smith, who is also penning tunes for a Young Romantics musical.