A new comedy play by Selina Fillinger and directed by Susan Stroman, POTUS, is turning the Shubert Theatre into the White House. POTUS tickets are available on New York Theatre Guide now.
With a full title of POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, POTUS is a play about "the women in charge of the man in charge of the free world." The action centers around a public relations distaster committed by the titular POTUS, or President of the United States, that snowballs into an international crisis. It's up to the seven women he relies on most — Chris, Bernadette, Stephanie, Dusty, Jean, Harriet, and Margaret — to fix things and keep him out of career-destroying trouble. And this isn't their first rodeo; they're already exhausted and nearly out of their minds from constantly having to clean up the president's messes.
The POTUS of the title doesn't represent any one president in particular; in a New York Times article, Fillinger says he's a composite of many leaders. According to her, the unseen character can stand in for any man who abuses power. Fillinger was inspired to write the play six years ago, just before the #MeToo movement picked up steam, after seeing multiple headlines in succession of leaders doing just that. The POTUS play centers such a story on the women, rather than giving airtime to the men who mistreat them (and the men who enable those men). Fillinger makes her Broadway debut with this farcical show; she was previously represented off-Broadway with Something Clean at Roundabout Theatre Company.
Some of the actors are making their Broadway debuts, too, though none of the members of the POTUS Broadway cast are strangers to the stage. Saturday Night Live veteran Rachel Dratch, actress/comedian Suzy Nakamura, and Emmy Award-winning Dancing With the Stars pro Julianne Hough are debuting alongside veteran Broadway actors: Grammy, Emmy, and Tony nominee Vanessa Williams returns to the Broadway stage for the first time since After Midnight in 2014. Lea DeLaria (of Orange is the New Black fame) makes her first Broadway appearance in six years, and Tootsie Tony nominee Lilli Cooper and Julie White, Tony winner for The Little Dog Laughed, round out the star-studded cast of funny women who have made their mark on both stage and screen.
In the "presidential" (that is, directorial) seat of POTUS on Broadway is Susan Stroman, a five-time Tony winner for directing and choreographing musicals on Broadway. (She picked up choreography awards for Contact, Show Boat, and Crazy for You, and both directing and choreography awards for The Producers.) Among her 20+ credits, POTUS marks Stroman's first time directing a Broadway play. She previously choreographed one, William Inge's Picnic, in 1994, and directed an Off-Broadway play, Dot, in 2016.
Get a rare, comedic glimpse inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at POTUS in New York.
Get tickets to POTUS on Broadway now.
