Strawhead is a play by American writers Norman Mailer and Richard Hannum about Marilyn Monroe.

The play is an adaptation of Mailer's 1980 book Of Women and Their Elegance, an imagined memoir told in Monroe's voice.

"[3] Mailer sees the fictional Monroe character in the play as "having an immensely dialectical mind; no sooner does she have a thought, than she comes on its opposite.

[1] At that time, Mailer had hoped that the play would open on Broadway in the spring 1981 or the fall 1981, but had not yet cast the Monroe character.

Prior to 1983, Mailer, Hunter, and Hannum also courted American actress Susan Sarandon to play the Marilyn Monroe character.

"[3] On March 7, 1983, the American Repertory Theatre at Mailer's alma mater Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, presented a staged reading of Strawhead.

[12] At Mailer's recommendation, Oglesby selected ART actor Karen MacDonald to play the Monroe character.

[13] In November 1985, Mailer brought his play to the Actors Studio,[2] an Off Broadway theater and school that gained worldwide recognition under the leadership of Lee Strasberg.

[8] Rather, the play was more about "chronicling all Mailer's life as The Great, White, Male Heterosexual, "Big Daddy", "The Man.

[4] In October 1987, the New York Times describe Kate Mailer's portrayal of Monroe as teenage punk rocker who is "less identified with her role.

[18] In her 2005 book The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, author Sarah Churchwell notes that Strawhead was a commercial failure.

[18] In April 2008, Harvard University received the papers of the co-author of the play, Richard G. Hannum,[19] formerly a resident of Sebastian, Florida.