Add another twist to this unusual Broadway spring: a political comedy by a 28-year-old writer whose previous production in New York took place in a 62-seat basement theater.
The new play has a full title – “POTUS: Or Behind Every Big Fool There Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” – and is a farce for a group of women controlling the damage to a troubled president.
Selina Filinger, the playwright, is working with Broadway veteran Susan Strawman to direct. The cast will include Julian Huff, Vanessa Williams, Rachel Drach, Lea Delaria, Lily Cooper, Susie Nakamura and Julie White.
The screenings are scheduled to begin on April 14, and the opening date is set for May 9, which will most likely make it part of next Broadway season, not the current one, if the Tony Awards stick to the expected opening deadline. the end of April for eligibility awards for this season. The POTUS performance at the Schubert Theater is limited and is scheduled to end on August 14.
Oregon, an Oregon native who works in Los Angeles as a writer for The Morning Show, said she started POTUS six years ago. (POTUS is an acronym for President of the United States.)
“For years we have had this endless cycle of titles about powerful men abusing their power, and every time I was fascinated by women who go around men and allow them,” she said in an interview. “The more I started thinking about these women, the more the farce began to be written.
And is the show for a specific president, such as the last one?
“It’s a merger of many men in power,” she said. “I put it in the White House because it is the highest office in the country, but you can put it in any company, every institution and many homes.
Fillinger’s previous work, Something Clean, was staged by Roundabout Underground in 2019 and was praised by New York Times critics Ben Brantley as “a wonderfully watched, richly compassionate new drama.”
Filinger said there was some thematic overlap between POTUS and Something Clean, which is about a mother battling her son’s sentence for sexual assault. Her first play, Faceless, was about an American jihadist.
“I think I’m interested in complicity,” she said. “POTUS” and “Something Clean,” she noted, “both focus on someone who has never been seen on stage, and that’s because I’m interested in who we give airtime to and who we don’t give airtime to. and I flip the switch on that. “
Stroman, who has won five Tony Awards for Choreography and Directing in the last 30 years, including both Producers categories, is best known for his musicals. This will be her first time directing a Broadway play; Outside of Broadway, she directed Coleman Domingo’s drama, The Point, in 2016.
In an interview, Strawman said an agent had sent her the POTUS script and she was immediately interested. “It’s very funny and has an important message in comedy. At one point, there are thoughts of what it is like to keep these people in power who are not worthy. “
The play’s main producers are four companies: Seaview, led by Greg Nobile; 51 Entertainment, founded by Lynette Howell Taylor; Glass Half Full Productions, directed by Gareth Lake; and Level Forward, co-founder of Abigail Disney. The production is allowed to raise up to $ 6.75 million, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but a spokeswoman said the actual capitalization of the play would be $ 5.9 million.