$
Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow at the Tony award red carpet.
Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow at the Tony award red carpet.

Metcalf and Lithgow to Star in Broadway-Bound Hillary and Clinton

Two-time Tony Award winner Laurie Metcalf (A Doll’s House, Part 2, Three Tall Women) and Two-Time Tony Award winner John Lithgow (The Changing Room, The Sweet Smell of Success) will join forces playing a compelling political duo, a former first lady who is making a bid for the presidency and her husband, the former Commander-in-Chief. Lucas Hnath’s (A Doll’s House, Part 2) new Broadway-bound play Hillary and Clinton will arrive in New York this spring with director Joe Mantello (Three Tall Women, The Boys in the Band) at the helm.

Set to begin previews in a yet-to-be-named theatre on March 16, 2019, ahead of an official opening night on Thursday, April 18, 2019. The creative team assembled for the production includes Chloe Lamford (Set Design), Tony and Academy Award winner Ann Roth (Costume Design), and Tony Award winner Hugh Vanstone (Lighting Design).

“Behind closed doors in the state of New Hampshire during the early days of 2008, a former First Lady named Hillary (Metcalf) is in a desperate bid to save her troubled campaign for President of the United States. Her husband, Bill (Lithgow), sees things one way; her campaign manager, Mark, sees things another. If any of this sounds familiar, don’t be fooled; in a universe of infinite possibilities, anything that can happen, will. In Hillary and Clinton, Lucas Hnath examines the politics of marriage, gender roles, and the limitations of experience and inevitability in this profoundly timely look at an American dynasty in crisis.”

Laurie Metcalf is perhaps best-known to audiences for playing Jackie Harris on the long-running sitcom Roseanne and its forthcoming spin-off The Connors. Theatergoing audiences will remember her fondly for her breathtaking performances in such Broadway plays as Misery, The Other Place, November, and her Tony-winning turns in Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 and the 2018 revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. Metcalf’s film roles include Desperately Seeking Susan, Leaving Las Vegas, Uncle Buck, JFK, Internal Affairs, the Toy Story series (The voice of Andy’s Mom), and for her Academy Award-nominated performance in this year’s Oscar contender Ladybird. Metcalf is an original member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

John Lithgow has two Tony Awards, one for Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Changing Room and Best Leading Actor in a Musical for The Sweet Smell of Success. Other Broadway credits include John Lithgow: Stories By Heart, A Delicate Balance, The Columnist (Tony Award nomination), All My Sons, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Tony nomination), The Retreat From Moscow, Sweet Smell of Success (Tony), M. Butterfly (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations), The Front Page, Requiem for a Heavyweight (Tony nomination and Drama Desk Award), among myriad others. Lithgow was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work in the feature films The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment. Lithgow has 11 Emmy Award nominations, winning six, most notably for the Netflix series The Crown, Showtime’s Dexter, and NBC’s 3rd Rock From the Sun.

Mark Robinson is the author of the two-volume encyclopedia The World of Musicals, The Disney Song Encyclopedia, and The Encyclopedia of Television Theme Songs. He maintains a theater and entertainment blog at markrobinsonwrites.com.

Learn More About Hillary and Clinton