we are joined this morning by two
incredibly talented women you know
vanessa williams from her film and
television work and roles like
wilhelmina slater from the hit show ugly
betty and of course you know the
hilarious rachel dratch from the seven
years she spent on saturday night live
creating a lot of memorable characters
my personal personal favorite
debbie downer the best the best
you can relate
vanessa and rachel are here
there you go nailed it
you guys are here to talk about your new
show a broadway show called potus
and it's a farce about a group of seven
brilliant women helping keep the
president in office as he relies on them
to manage his many personal and
professional crisis vanessa and rachel
good morning good morning how are you
guys and i know you brought some photos
because you've had a chance to meet
several first ladies well i am what i've
been told right and you play one first
lady yes so did you use that for
inspiration uh there are a couple of
nods um i i start uh act one in red so
that's uh kind of close to the nancy
reagan red because that's when i met her
i was 20 years old i'd just been crowned
miss america and that was my first visit
to the white house so that was pretty
amazing
and i have a headband in act two so
that's kind of a nod to hillary i have
met
as you can see many first ladies and uh
actually it looks like you meant all the
time
i have i've been really really lucky but
you know it's
i play a first lady uh she's pretty
formidable but we can't even say a lot
of the words that are in the show
because it is a it's a salty language
yeah
so you play the first lady and you sort
of play this character that's like the
president's work life you play as
secretary again we don't want to give
away too much but describe describe your
character well my character takes a
journey um
she
starts out as very mousy and like oh my
god did i do this right
so that's really fun to play and then
some things happen and
she breaks out of her shell the nerd
lets loose yes exactly the nerd lets
loose yeah so the show is a farce but it
really boils down to relationships
between females and the cast itself is
incredible i mean just to go through
some of the names julie white julianne
huff suzy nakamura i mean what is it
like getting to work together and i'm
assuming everyone brings their own flair
to their characters oh yeah i mean as
soon as leah delaria steps on stage all
her fans scream and she brings her
liaisons as you can as you can see her
dancing and and that's our kind of our
mega mix at the end of the show um
how would i describe it i mean someone
who saw it said that it's almost like
bridesmaids in the white house because
it's zany
it is oh that's hysterical yeah yeah
that sounds great a lot of physical
comedy and um you know it's a farce so a
lot of like slamming doors and
crazy things going wrong yes and i saw
it in the research it's also it's
apolitical so it takes shots at both
sides it's fun they're yeah they're
neither red nor blue i never never see
the president yeah he's an offstage
character
but it is really fun to see everyone all
the different actors bring their own
energy and right everyone's so good it's
just fun to watch them for me it's just
fun to sit back and watch yeah and i
can't believe that this is her first
time on broadway she's of course amazing
she's a girl she hasn't
exactly so we uh welcome her with open
arms and she's killing it are you having
flashbacks to snl i mean all the
rehearsals and the running around i mean
the thing i've the similarity is that
there is a live audience there which is
what i love so um that's all but there's
no cue cards so um yeah
this time it's all up in here but the
whole like you know crazy comedy part of
it is what i love doing so that's like
and the playwright is 28 years old i
mean
yeah she's really young and incredible
vivacious and the audience loves all the
text again there's a lot of stuff that
we can't say yeah but um it's it ranges
from the regular theater goers to this
young audience that is on fire and just
can't
they dive into the comedy and uh we give
it to him every night and vanessa you're
no you're no stranger to high heels but
high-heeled crocs i hear make an
appearance
yes they actually get applause
they can't be i mean crocs are
comfortable but high heel cards high
heel crocs balenciaga uh actually debut
than this um this fall and in the in the
stream real it's real okay so in the
script she uh my character is trying to
be earthy and relate to people
yeah exactly and uh and of course her
crocs are her attempt to meet with her
people uh on a certain level and of
course she ends up not doing the regular
crocs but the high heel ones pop in that
sounds like a familiar storyline but
we'll we'll leave it there
it's directed by susan strowman oh yeah
female power won a couple tony yeah yeah
amazing a lot of ladies behind the
scenes that's right
vanessa rachel thank you so much for
joining us
hey thanks for watching our youtube
channel find your favorite recipes
celebrity interviews uplifting stories
shop our favorite deals and so much more
with the today app download it now