Stephanie E. Gardner has been on an eight-year quest to discover the true identity of Robert Capa.

Capa, a photographer for Life magazine, is known for stark black and white images of war, most notably “Falling Soldier,” taken during the Spanish Civil War.

Less well-known is the image of Robert Capa.

Capa’s fascinating career and life is the subject of “The Man Who Invented Himself,” a play by Gardner, an Emmaus area playwright and filmmaker, in its Lehigh Valley debut reading for the Allentown Public Theatre (APT) “Theatre Cafe” series, 7 p.m. Jan. 19, Hava Java, 526 N. 19th St., Allentown.

Robert Capa is a pen name, or in his case, a camera name, for Endre Friedmann, a Hungarian Jew, and Gerda Taro, a German Jew, who, you might say, developed the ruse to market their photographs.

Gardner’s play concentrates on the three years of Friedmann and Gerda’s relationship during the Spanish Civil War.

Playing Andre (the name in the play) Friedmann is Chris Egging. Robert Capa is portrayed by Bill George, co-founder of Touchstone Theatre. Kate Egging is Gerda Taro.

John Corl, Kelly Herbert James, Mike Piz, Marcie Schlener and Steven Schmid round out the cast. Rick Bachl narrates.

Directing the ensemble is Anna Russell, APT Artistic Director.

Gardner conceived of the play after she viewed an exhibit in Amsterdam while traveling as a student at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where she received an MFA in Screenwriting. A staged reading of the play was first presented as a student project at Tisch and in 2013 at Manhattan Repertory Theatre.

“I was taken not only with his photographs, but with his Hollywood-style life,” Gardner explains.

Gardner met Susan Weaver, APT board president, at a film screening at the Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley. Weaver read Gardner’s play and found a slot for it in the “Theater Cafe” series. The reading is expected to be one and one-half hours.

“The timing was perfect. I haven’t thought of this play in several years,” Gardner says.

Robert Capa was born Endre Friedmann (1913 - 1954).

Gerda Taro was born Gerta Pohorylle (1910 - 1937).

Friedmann and Taro, who met in 1934, devised a scheme to market Robert Capa.

“She pretended to be Robert Capa’s sales agent and he pretended to be the darkroom assistant,” says Gardner, adding that they said Capa was in America and was very famous.

“Falling Soldier” was taken in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. “It was cited to be the first photograph of a man at the instant of his death,” Gardner notes.

Taro died in the Spanish Civil War. “She’s cited as the first female war correspondent to die in battle,” according to Gardner.

After Taro’s death, Friedmann represented himself as Robert Capa.

“In my play, you see Friedmann and the narrator is Robert Capa. In the course of the play, they merge into one. We see the transformation of Friedmann into Capa.

“By the time he started getting published in Life, I don’t think they cared,” Gardner says of Friedmann’s true identify.

Capa is credited with covering the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II European Theater, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War. His World War II photos documented London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris.

Capa’s life is like a good mystery novel, with facts blended into fiction. “Robert Capa was a larger-than-life person. He was often spinning tales. He was often the life of the party,” says Gardner.

Even the validity of Capa’s most famous photograph, “Falling Soldier,” is questioned.

“Scholars question as to whether ‘Falling Soldier’ was staged. That’s a major theme I take up in the play.

“I’ve been absorbed in this for about eight years. It just gets more interesting and fascinating, the more absorbed I get,” Gardner says.

Information: allentownpublictheatre.com