Mr. President (musical)

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Mr. President is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and lyrics and music by Irving Berlin.

It focuses on President Stephen Decatur Henderson, who loses his bid for re-election following a disastrous trip to the Soviet Union. Bored with life as a civilian, he decides to return to political life as a Senator.

After four previews, the Broadway production, directed by Joshua Logan and choreographed by Peter Gennaro, opened on October 20, 1962 at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 265 performances. The cast included Robert Ryan, Nanette Fabray, Anita Gillette, and Baayork Lee.

In a season dominated by hits like Oliver!, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Stop the World - I Want to Get Off, critics found the show to be old-fashioned and the score missing the magic of earlier Berlin works. It received lukewarm reviews, was a commercial failure, and proved to be Berlin's last full-length musical.

In 1964 former President Harry S. Truman made a cameo appearance on opening night at a production at the Starlight Theatre (Kansas City). He had to leave by ambulance at intermission because of an appendicitis attack.^[1]

In 2001, Gerard Alessandrini extensively revised the book and converted the plot into a spoof of the 2000 Presidential election debacle. After thirty previews, it opened on August 2, 2001 at the off-Broadway Douglas Fairbanks Theater where, hampered by reviews worse than those received by the original, it closed after ten performances.