{"id":229027,"date":"2025-09-15T15:28:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/229027\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T15:28:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:28:19","slug":"t-j-wilkins-and-shanice-will-be-barack-and-michelle-obama-in-new-musical-44-off-broadway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/229027\/","title":{"rendered":"T.J. Wilkins and Shanice Will Be Barack and Michelle Obama in New Musical 44 Off-Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOff-Broadway News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tT.J. Wilkins and Shanice Will Be Barack and Michelle Obama in New Musical 44 Off-Broadway<\/p>\n

Eli Bauman’s new musical will play the Daryl Roth Theatre.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

T.J. Wilkins and Shanice<\/p>\n

Casting is now complete for the musical comedy\u00a044\u2014The Musical, which will begin its eight-week limited engagement October 14 at Off-Broadway’s\u00a0The Daryl Roth Theatre.<\/p>\n

Directed by co-creator Eli\u00a0Bauman with music direction by\u00a0Anthony \u201cBrew\u201d Brewster\u00a0and choreography by Miss James Alsop, the cast will be led by\u00a0T.J. Wilkins (NBC’s The Voice) as Barack Obama and Shanice (Flex & Shanice) as Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n

The cast of the satire of the Obama presidency\u00a0will also feature\u00a0Chad Doreck as Joe Biden with Larry Cedar\u00a0as\u00a0Mitch McConnell, Summer Collins\u00a0as\u00a0Sarah Palin, Summer Nicole Greer\u00a0as the\u00a0Voice of the People, Jenna Pastuszek\u00a0as\u00a0Hillary Clinton,\u00a0Dino Short\u00e9 as\u00a0Herman Cain, Jeff Sumner\u00a0as\u00a0Lindsey Graham, and Michael Uribes\u00a0as\u00a0Ted Cruz. Understudies\u00a0Audri Bartholomew,\u00a0Wilkie Ferguson III<\/a>,\u00a0Chelsea Morgan Stock<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Ryan Williams will round out the company.<\/p>\n

The performers will be backed by\u00a0the\u00a0L.A. band House of Vibe as \u201cThe Andrew Jackson Five\u201d with Anthony \u201cBrew\u201d Brewster\u00a0on\u00a0keyboards, Phillip \u201cFish\u201d Fisher\u00a0on\u00a0drums, Corey Cofield\u00a0on\u00a0bass, Conrad Bauer\u00a0on\u00a0guitar, and Greg Raymond\u00a0on\u00a0keyboards. The music supervisor is Wilkie Ferguson III. <\/p>\n

Former Obama campaign staffer Bauman, who penned the musical’s score and book, said in a statement, “Back in November of 2021, I did a reading of my first-ever musical in the valley of Los Angeles.\u00a0I had no clue if the musical was any good, and I was shocked that any actor\u2014let alone talented ones\u2014would want to be in it. Four years later, six actors from the first reading have done every single production since\u2014Chad Doreck, Dino Shorte<\/a>, Larry Cedar, Michael Uribes, Jeff Sumner, and our Obama himself, T.J. Wilkins, who has sung every single note since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2022, we were lucky enough to swoop up the incomparable Shanice to play Michelle Obama and later welcome Summer Nicole Greer, Jenna Pastuzcek, Summer Collins, Audri Bartholemew, and Ryan Williams along with our band, ‘The Andrew Jackson Five,’ to our 44 family for our sold-out runs in L.A. and Chicago,\u201d continued Bauman. \u201cIt is among the proudest moments of my life to bring this crew, who put their faith in me years ago, and have poured their hearts into this show ever since, to the bright lights of New York and the Daryl Roth Theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

44 has scenic design by Julio Himede, costume design by Matthew Hemesath<\/a>, lighting design by Nathan W. Scheuer<\/a> and Natali Arco<\/a>, and sound design by Jonathan A. Burke.<\/p>\n

Monica Saunders-Weinberg and Bauman produce in association with Anthony \u201cBrew\u201d Brewster, Steve McKeever (Hidden Beach Recordings), Conrad Bauer,
\nand Shanice and Kerry Gordy. General management is by\u00a0DR Theatrical Management<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The musical is currently playing a record-breaking return
\nengagement at Chicago\u2019s Studebaker Theater through September 21. The New
\n York production will officially open November 6 and continue through
\nDecember 7.
<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Off-Broadway News T.J. Wilkins and Shanice Will Be Barack and Michelle Obama in New Musical 44 Off-Broadway Eli…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":229028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-229027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}