In an interview with Howard Stern at the start of the week, Alec Baldwin discussed the possibility of writing and starring in a solo Trump show on Broadway, with Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels producing. Baldwin won the “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series” Emmy this year for his presidential impersonation on SNL.
Baldwin was interviewed on Stern’s Sirius XM program to promote his new book, You Can’t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump (A So-Called Parody), co-written with novelist and Peabody-winning public radio host Kurt Andersen.
“We’re all sick of the whole Trump as source of comedy thing, and I am too,” Baldwin said, “but Kurt goes to another level.”
Baldwin then announced that “we may take the book and make it into a one-man show on Broadway.” He also stressed that he’d need Michaels’ approval, as he owns the rights to Baldwin’s impersonation.
“What Lorne did do is give me permission to write this book,” Baldwin said. “My rendering of (Trump) is his intellectual property.”
The fruition of the potential show is not unlikely; Will Ferrell brought his Saturday Night Live impression of George W. Bush to the Cort Theatre in You’re Welcome, America. A Final Night with George W. Bush in 2009, and the three-month engagement was a huge success, and Lorne Michaels is currently producing fellow SNL favorite Tina Fey’s musical adaptation of her hit movie, Mean Girls, scheduled to arrive on Broadway in the spring.
Plus, Baldwin’s got the Broadway credit to back him up, having already performed in five Broadway shows including a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Jessica Lange in 1992 and most recently, the Tony-nominated revival of Orphans with Ben Foster and Tom Sturridge in 2013.