The Dead Presidents' Club is a comedy written by Larry King. Texas State hosted this play for two weeks as a Common Experience event, free to all freshmen enrolled in a University Seminar class. The play is about four past U.S. Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman. It begins with the death of Nixon, who doesn't realize that he is dead until LBJ reveals to him that they are all stuck in Purgatory. Each of the president's personalities were exaggerated for comedic effect, and it worked. Nixon is seen as an uptight little man, while LBJ is a laid-back Texas farm boy. The play centers around these two characters as they devise a plan to get out of Purgatory and into Heaven.
The play ends with the trials of all four men in front of God, who happens to be a black woman. (The actress who played God played the role of Effie in Dream Girls on Broadway, which shows you how professional this production was.)
Though certainly not the most entertaining play I've ever seen, this production was put on very well, and each of the actors portrayed their character well. I enjoyed the jokes about the presidents' mistakes in office, such as Watergate for Nixon, Truman and the atomic bomb, and Coolidge for doing absolutely nothing while in office.
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