The Adult In the Room: Story of Madame Speaker

The Local Tourist tickets for two to The Adult In the Room courtesy of Carol Fox and Associates.

The Adult In the Room, a new play by Bill McMahon about the life of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is now playing at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater’s Richard Christiansen Theater. Starring acclaimed Broadway, television and film actress Orlagh Cassidy and directed by Heather Arnson and Conor Bagley, the play is produced by Tony/Emmy/Olivier Award-winning producer Jim Kierstead, Emmy Award-winning producer Linda Karn and Broadway producer William Fernandez. 

How did Nancy Pelosi become the first female Speaker of the House – and perhaps more importantly, how has she managed to stay there? First elected to Congress in 1987, Speaker Pelosi is a woman about whom everyone has an opinion, and yet who almost no one truly knows. In the play, she recounts her personal story and political journey while trying to balance the forces of extreme left and extreme right.

Using all of her power and talents, she tries to preserve that rarest of things in D.C. currently, consensus. That is, until her brand of consensus fades into the rear-view mirror. This galvanizing play is not just about the formidable Madame Speaker herself, but about the convulsive political climate that currently permeates the United States.

Told with wit, irony, emotion and leavening doses of humor, The Adult In the Room is not just a history lesson, but a reflection on where we are, and how we got here. Nancy Pelosi is reviled. She is beloved. And she has captured the attention of a nation. Nancy Pelosi’s rise to become America’s first female Speaker of the House has been historical and controversial.

You may not agree with Madame Speaker, but you cannot help but admire her guts and guile. She is as formidable as a woman in politics can get, yet just like the rest of us battles her insecurities with chocolates and will power. Yes, she comes across slightly cartoonish in the play. But her life is inspiring in more ways than one.

Everyone knows Nancy. Yet, few really know her. Listen to her story.

Victory Gardens Theatre is located at 2433 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.