Looking Over The President’s Shoulder

Before Lee Daniels’ The Butler, playwright James Still shared the real-life, inspirational story of Alonzo Fields (Black Theater Alliance Award winner Manny Buckley*), grandson of a freed slave, who grew up in an all-black town in southern Indiana. Forced by the Depression to give up his dreams of becoming an opera singer, Fields accepts a job at the White House and served there for 21 years. This tour-de-force solo play is told from the unique perspective of serving four U.S. presidents and their families: Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower. “Gentle Americana, amiable, and dignified…the appeal is its peeking through the keyhole quality,” said The Washington Post.