The Clintons are Broadway bound.
“Hillary and Clinton,” a new play by Lucas Hnath (“A Doll’s House, Part 2”) about a certain “former first lady named Hillary,” “her husband, Bill” and “an American dynasty in crisis,” will open on Broadway on April 18.
Laurie Metcalf (who won a Tony in 2017 for her performance in “A Doll’s House, Part 2”) and John Lithgow (who appeared on Broadway earlier this year in “John Lithgow: Stories by Heart”) will play Hillary and Bill, respectively. It will be directed by Joe Mantello (who most recently helmed “The Boys in the Band” and “Three Tall Women” on Broadway) and produced by Scott Rudin (who will be behind no less than five Broadway shows this season).
“Hillary and Clinton” (which premiered at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in 2016 and has since received several other regional productions) takes place in New Hampshire circa 2008, during Hillary’s first campaign to win the Democratic Party presidential primary. It involves a disagreement between Bill and Hillary’s campaign manager Mark (presumably Mark Penn) over how to resurrect her troubled campaign.
The news release containing the news warned that “if any of this sounds familiar, don’t be fooled; in a universe of infinite possibilities, anything that can happen, will.”
In 2017, Lucas Hnath, who had written several acclaimed Off-Broadway plays including “The Christians” and “Red Speedo,” premiered “A Doll’s House, Part 2” (a freewheeling riff on and sequel to Ibsen’s landmark 1879 drama) on Broadway. Theatre Communications Group recently announced that “A Doll’s House, Part 2” was the most produced play by major American theaters last season (not including Shakespeare or “A Christmas Carol”).
