📆 Saturday, September 7th – Sunday, September 29th
📍 ACT Contemporary Theatre: 700 Union St, Seattle
Thousands of years of theatre are littered with political satires, but it’s always a high-wire act to present one in an election year. Presenting POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive even two years after its Broadway premiere feels more fraught. (Remember the sweet summer children we were in 2022? How time flies.) But the only way out is through, and if laughs are going to help calm the nerves or at least put things into proper perspective, ACT is right to program Selina Fillinger’s farce with less than 100 days until Election Day.
The title spells out the premise, as a male president’s inner circle tries desperately to keep his career afloat over one long, chaotic day. It’s bawdy, breezy zaniness (peep that “95 minutes with intermission” runtime), and while this production can’t boast the Tony-nominated celebrity cast of the New York production, PNW talent is ready to sink their teeth into Fillinger’s script. Under the direction of Jillian Armenante (former Annex Theatre company member you may know from Judging Amy, Fresh Off the Boat, and Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s Kittens in a Cage), the ensemble of women behind the titular dumbass includes local heavy hitters like Anne Allgood (Something’s Afoot), Annette Toutonghi (Ibsen in Chicago), Ayo Tushinde (Sheathed), Cassi Q Kohl (The Hello Girls), and Gin Hammond (Returning the Bones).
The world probably won’t end in a couple months, so take a night off from worrying about the future of [*gestures at everything*] and get some yuks in. Then, for the love of god, vote.
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