Elena Maria Garcia, Karen Stephens, Elizabeth Price in "POTUS" at Zoetic Stage. (Photo by Morgan Sophia Photography)
Playwright Selina Fillinger’s hit comedy “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” produced by Zoetic Stage opens Thursday, Jan. 9 in previews, then Friday, Jan. 10 through Sunday, Jan. 26, at The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in the Carnival Studio Theater.
Featuring a local, all female cast, the production is part of the Arsht Theater’s Up Close series.
The play premiered on Broadway in 2022 and garnered three Tony nominations, making Fillinger, at 28, one of the youngest playwrights to be produced on Broadway.
When Zoetic Stage’s artistic director Stuart Meltzer read the play, he said he laughed until his sides hurt.
“I knew immediately that we had to produce this play,” says Meltzer. “I also knew that I had access to some of the funniest comedic actors in South Florida who would be perfect for these roles.”
Autumn Kioti Horne, Amber Joy Layne, Elizabeth Price, Karen Stephens, Elena Maria Garcia, Gaby Tortoledo, Renata Eastlick. (Photo by Morgan Sophia Photography)
Those actors include Carbonell Award winners Elena Maria Garcia (she last appeared on the Carnival Stage in her one-woman show, which was co-written with Meltzer, “Cuban Chicken Soup: When There’s No More Café” last May), Karen Stephens, Silver Palm Award winner and Carbonell Award nominee Elizabeth Price, Gaby Tortoledo, Autumn Kioti Horne, Amber Joy Layne (“The Dancing Comedian”) and Renata Eastlick, making her Zoetic Stage debut.
The play is a comedy about the women in charge of the man in charge of the free world (no names are mentioned). When the president bungles a public relations nightmare into a global crisis, the seven women get busy doing what they do best – making their boss look good and saving his you-know-what.
Not just a comedy or farce, the play deals with serious subject matter, including sexual politics, abuse of power and gender equality.
Filinger has stated that the inspiration for the play was the 2016 Billy Bush Access Hollywood interview with Donald Trump when he initially ran for office. She was intrigued, she says, not only by what the former and future president said but how the media handled it.
Autumn Kioti Horne, Amber Joy Layne, Gaby Tortoledo, Renata Eastlick in "POTUS" at Zoetic Stage (Photo by Morgan Sophia Photography)
When she learned that a majority of white women cast their vote for Trump, she said, “The play’s message started to clarify, and it went from being a screed to a battle cry.”
And, while she says the play is political, she says it’s not partisan, as the identity of the protagonist is in the eye of the beholder.
Garcia, of Miami, plays Stephanie, (played by "Saturday Night Live's" Rachel Dratch on Broadway) the presidential secretary, a character with low self-esteem who is trying to summon her courage.
Growing up watching comedians Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, Garcia also admires the characters Kristen Wiig plays and loves the physical comedy of Jerry Lewis, especially in his 1960 film, “The Bellboy,” which takes place at the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach.
“As Stephanie, I get do so more physical comedy, which is right in my wheelhouse,” says Garcia.
“And, I relate to the role,” she says. “As women, we know stuff has to get done.”
Recounting how she climbed up on the roof of her house and pressure cleaned the 31-square foot tile roof, a task which took her more than seven hours, she says, “We can't wait for the men in our lives to do stuff.”
Oh, and, she also pressure cleaned and painted her driveway.
“That trait is something that I share with my character,” says Garcia. “We both have the tenacity and stamina to get the job done.”
Elizabeth Price, making her first appearance with Zoetic Stage, plays Harriet, the chief of staff. But it isn't the first time she's been on the Carnival Studio Theatre stage. In 2022, Price played playwright-actor Heidi Schreck in City Theatre's "What the Constitution Means to Me."
A Texas native, Price knew she wanted to be an actor as a freshman in high school, after realizing that being a marine biologist required too much time in the lab.
After school, Price headed to Los Angeles to be in the movies and appeared in a number of independent films and on TV and was a contestant on the reality show, “Blind Date.”
She moved to Florida in 2009 and met Meltzer last July when he was directing Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” at New City Players.
The two developed a good working relationship and he asked her to be in the show.
“Performing comedy on stage is my favorite place to be,” she says. “And, POTUS is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen.”
She admires the comedic women of “Saturday Night Live” from the days of Gilda Radner to the current days of Kate McKinnon, Molly Shannon and Tina Fey as well as stand-up comedians Taylor Tomlinson and Jenny Slate.
She shares an ironic sense of humor with her character and empathizes with her ambition and desire for power which has led her character to sacrifice her personal life.
The play, she says is “furiously fast and fierce.”
She wonders why seven women are propping up a man who is making a mess.
“This is a common experience for women,” she says. “We can all relate to this.”
Karen Stephens, Renata Eastlick, Elena Maria Garcia, Amber Joy Layne, Elizabeth Price, Autumn Kioti Horne, Gaby Tortoledo. (Photo - Morgan Sophia Photography)
West Palm Beach native, Karen Stephens, a Carbonell Award winner, who plays Margaret, The First Lady, relates to this experience.
Playing a Harvard grad and an achievement-oriented and accomplished woman, Stephens says her character has to subjugate herself to the mediocre men around her.
A veteran of Zoetic Stage, last year she was a Carbonell Award finalist for her lead role in Zoetic Stage’s “Clyde's,” where she “had the time of her life.”
She grew up admiring actors Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll and Meryl Streep.
After earning her BFA from University of Florida, when her mother discouraged her from going to New York to pursue a stage career, Stephens looked closer to home and found an opportunity at Jan McArt's Royal Palm Dinner Theater in Boca Raton where she earned a part in “Chicago.”
Not only an actor, Stephens also writes and produces and created a one-woman show, titled “Out of the Box,” which touches upon issues of race and society and debuted at the Orlando Fringe Festival in 1994. The play went on for runs in Atlanta, Florida Stage and the former Caldwell Theater in Boca Raton.
She’s excited to be back at Zoetic Stage and working alongside friends and fellow cast mates.
“POTUS is very funny and very timely,” she says, noting that in the last election we came close to having our first woman president.
Zoetic Stage’s associate director, Bailey Hacker, who started at the company as a fellow in the 2023-24 season, says, “POTUS is a wonderful and hilarious play.”
“The show is 90 minutes of laughing your ass off,” she says. “But, as entertaining and funny as it is, it’s also about the more serious issues of misogyny and gender dynamics.”
The characters are all relatable, she says, noting you may see your best friend, your mother, or your aunt.
What does she hope the audience takes away from the show?
She paraphrases the playwright, “I hope they (the audience) have a wonderful night of laughter and joy.”
“Then, I hope they wake up the next day and put their money, time and votes toward equity and freedom for all.”
IF YOU GO:
- WHAT: Zoetic Stage and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts present the Miami premiere of “POTUS: or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.”
- WHEN: Thursday, Jan. 9 previews; Opens Friday, Jan. 10 through Sunday Jan. 26, 2025.
- TICKETS: Tickets: $56-61. Tickets may be purchased at the Adrienne Arsht Center box office by calling (305) 949-6722, or online at arshtcenter.org.
- WHERE: Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132.
- INFORMATION: arshtcenter.org or zoeticstage.org.
