Arts & Entertainment
Barack Obama…the Musical? Former Campaign Staffer Elects to Bring His Show to Chicago in Advance of the DNC
The cast of “44 – THE unOFFICIAL, unSANCTIONED OBAMA MUSICAL.” (Credit: Mackenzie Hilton)
Note: This story was updated to note the show has been extended through Aug. 20.
Eli Bauman isn’t a household name, although his father is well-known to baby boomers (more on that later). Bauman is a TV writer whose biggest credit may be the short-lived NBC series “Maya & Marty” with Maya Rudolph and Martin Short.
Back in 2008 he was a young campaign organizer for then-candidate Barack Obama. Now, he’s written “44 – THE unOFFICIAL, unSANCTIONED OBAMA MUSICAL.”
The show premiered in Los Angeles in 2023 and drops into Chicago right before the Democratic National Convention.
WTTW News spoke with Bauman about Obama, Republican rappers and his family history in the business.
WTTW News: So what’s the idea behind this “unofficial” show?
Eli Bauman: It’s a story of the first term of the Obama presidency, but it does not adhere particularly to history or reality. When I started writing this I wanted a break from reality. It was 2016, and we all know what happened then. In a weird way, having a fictional retelling of events allowed me to say ‘How exactly did we get here?’ in a creative and fun way.
And it’s subtitled “As Told Through the Hazy Recollection of Joe Biden...”
Yes, which to some extent is just a device to not have to strictly stick to events. It’s kind of how Biden remembers things rather than a factual telling of it. Also, our Biden is 40 years old, very fit, and moonwalks across the stage.
I’ve only seen clips from “44,” but it seems both reverent and irreverent. Is that fairly accurate?
That’s a wonderful way of putting it. People go ‘Oh, this is going to be an earnest treatise on politics or some very left-wing kind of agenda-driven show,’ and it’s very much not that. It’s political in its satire, but we’ve actually had a lot of Republicans come to our show and really enjoy it.
And there is a rap battle between Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz?
That’s true! I can’t say it actually happened, but it’s based on a real premise. The song is called “Filibusters,” which lends itself to rapping. One of the things the actual Ted Cruz did to filibuster was to read the entirety of “Green Eggs and Ham” over and over. So if you haven’t ever heard “Green Eggs and Ham” rapped, you’ll get that opportunity here.
Did you cast people based on physical resemblance or their vocal impressions of who they were to portray?
I wanted the essence of someone without any semblance of an impression of them. There were two things I tried to avoid at the beginning of this. One, was no Trump at all. I figured he’d take up enough oxygen without my help. And the other thing was to make sure that in the casting and directing process, everyone knew that they were not bound to do an impression of someone.
Did you model it on any other shows? “Hamilton” perhaps or “1776?”
Not really, but “Hamilton” opened my eyes to playing with different musical styles not bound to classic musical theater stuff. “The Book of Mormon” from a tonal standpoint was an interesting model – but mostly I don’t know what I’m doing, and that was helpful for me to develop my own style.
Your father is Jon Bauman, better known as Bowzer from the rock-n-roll revival group Sha Na Na. He studied at Juilliard. Did you ask him for advice?
During the early stages he was a very helpful collaborator. I had things in my ear that I couldn’t put into my hands at first, so I would sing to him and say “Can you help me figure out what this is, and make it playable enough that I can take it from there?” and then I got good enough fairly quickly and didn’t need to lean on him. But because of his training, he’s more skilled than I am. He wrote one unbelievably beautiful song by himself but you could tell it was written by a 70-year-old man and not me, and it didn’t fit. So I had the unique misfortune of having to cut my dad’s song. It was a shi--y feeling, but the show always has to win.
You worked on the Obama campaign in 2008. What were your duties?
In 2008 I was in my 20s, and I gave my whole being to the campaign. I worked in Clark County, where Las Vegas is. They give you districts to run, so I was in charge of that with a volunteer base of people coming into town. So what I used to call ‘the Prius caravan’ would come up from LA, and I organized those canvases. A lot of it was about empowering people and giving them the tools to be semi-autonomous. Then surrogates would come to town, and they’d have remarks from the main office but then there’d be very specific stuff that applies to Vegas.
Because I had a writing background I’d often help out with that. So if Bill Clinton comes to town, he knows what he’s going to say, but he doesn’t know the specific issues for the locals. Clinton is a good example of someone who, when you hand him a piece of paper, he looks at it once and then he knows it better than you do.
You clearly planned this run of the show as a kind of appetizer to the DNC, but you also have strong Chicago connections, correct?
My mother’s family is from Lake Forest, so I went there over the summer a lot. But then I spent the last three winters in Chicago. My wife is the showrunner of “The Bear,” so I’ve spent a lot of time here with our kids. The answer to “Who moves from LA to Chicago in February?” is “My family.” We’re excited to be here in the belly of the beast. If you have this show at this time during this election and you aren’t in Chicago doing it, what’s the point of being in this business at all?
“44 – THE unOFFICIAL, unSANCTIONED OBAMA MUSICAL (As Told Through the Hazy Recollection of Joe Biden)” plays the Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., Aug. 7-20.
