‘Clinton: the Musical’ will debut off-Broadway in New York in April, featuring dancing reporters and Lewinsky scandal prosecutor Kenneth Starr singing a number called ‘Sexual Relations.’
The play, the brainchild of two Australian brothers Paul and Michael Hodge, celebrates the first baby-boomer president, who preferred briefs to boxers, played a sax on national TV, presided over an economic boom and got himself impeached, CBS News reported.
Paul, who wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the story said that the thing that endeared Bill Clinton and continues to endear him to the American public is that he was a very identifiable human being, adding that he was clearly human and he had flaws like everyone.
Director and choreographer Dan Knechtges said that it really does its job of taking down America and uplifting it at the same time, in a weird sort of way, adding that nothing is sacred.
Two men will play the 42nd president, one a wholesome, intelligent Clinton, and another a randy, rogue one (Tom Galantich and Duke Lafoon share the task.) Only Hillary can see both.
Paul added that it seemed like a good device to sum up a very complicated man but also something that had a lot of opportunity for humor, and also something that allowed us to tell a story that everyone knows in way that they don’t know.
Kerry Butler, the Tony Award-nominated star of ‘Xanadu,’ will play Hillary Rodham Clinton just as the former secretary of state debates whether to run her own presidential campaign in 2016.
The Hodge brothers kept an eye on Hillary Clinton’s career as they wrote the show, reworking her part and throwing in topical humor, like jokes about her email.
The 27-year-old Paul said that that’s part of the fun of doing something that’s set in the past where people know what’s going to happen in the future but the characters in the past don’t know what’s going to happen, which is an opportunity for comedy.
The brothers insist they have no domestic political axe to grind, seeing as they are Australian citizens. They wanted simply to see the president as a flesh-and-blood man.
Paul noted that he admires Bill Clinton, who is a very complicated person, adding that his view of all of the people involved in the story is that they’re all very complicated human beings. (ANI)