The work, to run May 25-June 18, will be directed by WHAT's founding artistic director Gip Hoppe. The reportedly racy script had an exploratory reading earlier this spring. According to press materials, the plot concerns "A savvy news reporter and an opportunistic plastic surgeon [who] persuade a right wing TV anchor to run for president—if only he'll keep his pants on! Robert Reich exposes the sordid underside of the world he knows so well in this wickedly hilarious political farce."
Reich isn't the first Clinton figure to try his hand at playwriting. In 1999, Sag Harbor's Bay Street Theatre presented This Town, a one-act by for Clinton advisor associate Sidney Blumenthal.
Reich is University Professor and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University and at Brandeis’s Heller School of Social Policy and Management. He has written ten books, including "The Work of Nations," "The Future of Success" and "Locked in the Cabinet." His most recent book is "Reason."
Public Exposure will open the WHAT season. It will be followed by the Pinter one-acts Ashes to Ashes and The Lover directed by Rick Lombardo, running June 26-July 12 and July 24 – Aug. 9; Pugilist Specialist by Adriano Shaplin (June 23-July 16); Hazard County by Allison Moore (July 21-Aug. 13); The Dream Express written and directed by Len Jenkin, at the Duck Creeke Tavern, 70 Main Street, Wellfleet (Aug. 21 – Sept. 6); Bug by Tracy Letts, directed by WHAT artistic director Jeff Zinn (Aug. 18-Sept. 10); McReele by Stephen Belber, directed by Benny Sato Ambush (Sept. 15-Oct. 8); Mercy on the Doorstep written and directed by Gip Hoppe (Oct. 13-Nov. 6).
The last is the latest in a long series of Hoppe premieres at WHAT. The story is described this way: "Rena's father has died and left her his rambling old house. Unfortunately her boozy, excoriating stepmother, Corinne, is holed up inside. Rena does the Christian thing and asks Corrine to stay—all she has to do is boot the bottle and accept Jesus Christ as her own personal savior." Gippe's recent A New War was a big regional hit, playing WHAT, Boston and New Haven.
