Newark's Chapel Street Players launch their new season this weekend with something particularly timely — a comedy about friendships and workplace catastrophes set in the White House.
The play is called "POTUS" but the focus remains squarely on people and predicaments, not politics. The titular POTUS, insider shorthand for the President of the United States, never makes an appearance, and the play is deliberately vague about what party the administration belongs to. Instead, it focuses on resiliency and relationships among seven women who work in the White House.
“It is a discovery of female strength in a very farcical manner,” says Pam Huxtable, who plays Harriet, the White House chief of staff.
Joining Huxtable in the all-woman cast is Charlotte Moran, who plays Stephanie, the President’s secretary and secret-keeper.
It's really about female friendship and that trust and how strong that friendship is and how that's kind of what holds everything together,” Moran says.
While it’s hard to escape politics in a news cycle that often seems inundated with it, Huxtable says working on this show has been more of a relief than a reminder.
“It is nice to have characters talking about very serious things, but having an audience laugh at what's happening rather than despair mode,” she says.
“POTUS” opens on Friday, October 2 with performances through October 10.
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