One president. A four-letter word. A global PR disaster. Seven women trying to keep the country together. This is the setup for POTUS Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive at City Theatre. The play, which premiered on Broadway in 2022 with stars like Vanessa Williams, Rachel Dratch, Julianne Hough, and more, is a fast-paced, wickedly funny farce. However, it aims to turn the conventions of the farce, which playwright Selina Fillinger says “typically rely on sexist and racist tropes” on its head. The show’s characters are all female and prominently features a queer storyline.
Missy Moreno, a Pittsburgh comedy and theater staple, said, “These characters aren’t lovely people because they’re women. We get to be multidimensional.” She plays Bernadette, the President’s lesbian, drug criminal sister. Even with her past, Moreno says, “She’s a hardcore lover and proud lesbian who swings through all kinds of different states like leveraging her brother’s power, passionate romance, manipulation, open-hearted confessions.”
The process has been uniquely liberating for Moreno, and she even confessed to her dressing room, “You are witnessing a Missy transformation.” Moreno has emerged proud of her pansexual identity. “From Day one of getting the role, it’s been a process playing a lesbian in public, scenarios I haven’t even engaged with as a newer queer person- confessing love and being loving.” She added, “It’s scary but thrilling. It’s such a gift to have a vessel to practice this type of relationship.” She praised the production’s intimacy coordinator, Kaja Dunn, who helped build and shape her character’s relationship with her press secretary love interest, Jean, played by Amelia Pedlow. Rehearsals together felt loving, open, and grateful, giving Moreno the time to prepare herself to genuinely honor the show’s throughline lesbian relationship and find the freedoms in it as a queer person. “I didn’t know I could talk about these things and have autonomy and feel heard,” said Moreno, who felt her queer identity be “unlocked” by the process. “I’m so grateful to City Theatre, this show, and Selina Fillinger for crafting a lesbian love story that isn’t a punchline.”
Her reclamation of identity is tied to the play’s language. “We’re taking back terms that have been used negatively and putting different meanings behind them,” she said, “stripping them of fear, oppression. Turning it into something fun, celebratory, and rebellious.”
That same energy has been present in the rehearsal room and now on stage, working alongside her dynamic cast, which features other queer and non-binary performers. The casting breakdown ends with these words, “Beauty is subjective. So long as they’re fast, fierce, and fucking hilarious.”
Moreno couldn’t agree more, adding that the show is a total “ass kicking party”. Moreno experienced a deep sigh of relief regarding the all-female characters. “As a comedian, you’re in spaces dominated by men. In POTUS, I realized I don’t have to compete with the voice of a man. Maybe that’s a queer feeling, too; there’s no added worry about someone respecting me or my space. We are all able to be hilarious without a man trying to one-up me. Everyone has a really funny, specific lane.” She is also inspired that despite their friendships, hatred, or allegiances, the characters can find common ground and that they’re “people moving with the change, rather than trying to stop it.”
Moreno held her tongue time and time again trying not to spoil the show. “You’re never going to know what will happen next in a good, fun way. All of the ‘what ifs’ play out in the most ridiculous way imaginable.” She has been thrilled by the audience reactions so far, which have been incredibly vocal from start to finish, “laughter, groans, gasps, everything, just absolutely losing it.”
The play has a real urgency with the looming presence of the election in November. When asked how she felt the play’s context might shift with the possible inauguration of Kamala Harris, Moreno said, “the reality is just because a woman will be president that doesn’t mean everything is magically fixed and will be perfect. This show harkens to the white patriarchal system that needs to be dismantled, that hurts women and men. Maybe a woman will be able to chisel that away and break that necessary ground.” She went on, “When Kamala wins, this play will still be relevant because it’s the system that’s broken- a single gender can’t fix that but might be able to shift the deeper foundation.”
Moreno wants everyone to see the show, not only for the powerhouse cast featuring Tamara Tunie, but that it’s also a great way for everyone, no matter the party affiliation, to release political stress through laughter and shock through the play’s madcap mayhem. “It’s a super ass queer play.” said Moreno, who loves the tension and energy shaped by director Meredith McDonough where “it feels like anyone could make out at any moment. Our bodies are fully used and all over the place.”
She couldn’t help but express her gratitude to City Theatre, McDonough, and the playwright again, “I’m forever indebted to them for letting a queer person who didn’t know how to be out use art to find myself for the future.” Missy Moreno added one final thought, “This show serves cunt.”