Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow are set to play Hillary and Bill Clinton on Broadway.
In Hillary and Clinton, the two-time Tony award winners will portray the power couple during the 2008 Democratic primaries in a production from Tony and Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin.
“It’s a political play – but not in the way I think anybody will expect,” Rudin told the Hollywood Reporter. “It treats the Clintons like Shakespeare treated real people in his history plays – it is both fundamentally truthful and also wildly imaginative.”
The play, which will start previews in New York in March, will be a four-hander focusing on the couple as well as her chief strategist Mark J Penn and Barack Obama, who will be unnamed and referred to only as “The Other Guy”.
It’s written by Lucas Hnath, reuniting with Metcalf after A Doll’s House, Part 2, which saw her pick up a Tony for lead actress in a play. Hillary and Clinton originally premiered in 2016 in Chicago, but the new version is reportedly far different.
“It’s funny and smart and intensely theatrical and, I think, very moving,” said Rudin. “It has that particular kind of energy of the best backstage dramas – it’s a deep dive into a pivotal moment we think we know a lot about, but that in fact we actually know very little about.”
After receiving a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her work in Lady Bird, Metcalfe went on to win a featured actress Tony for Three Tall Women. She’s set to return to the small screen in the Roseanne-free sitcom The Conners later this year.
Lithgow, recently seen in Netflix hit The Crown, will next be on the big screen in the remake of Pet Sematary before playing disgraced Fox CEO Roger Ailes in Fair and Balanced, alongside Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman.
