Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. A new musical takes us back to when the first Black president of the United States was elected, Barack Hussein Obama. Get ready for 44 The Musical. [music]

Oh, yes, he could charm the pants off your mama but it was rough going for 44 in those early years. As told from the point of view of Joe Biden as he, "remembers it," the show recount recounts how Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz made the president's life tough, but with a strong woman at his side, we watch as the world has to get used to having a president that cool.

The musical will have you laughing and singing along using Hip Hop, R&B, old and new, plus even a little gospel. After runs and Chicago and Los Angeles, 44 The Musical, which was officially called 44 The Unofficial Unsanctioned Obama Musical, can be seen off Broadway at the Daryl Roth Theatre on East 15th Street. With us now is the man who plays Obama, TJ Wilkins. Nice to meet you, TJ

TJ Wilkins: Nice to meet you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: And writer, director and composer, Eli Bauman. Hi, Eli.

Eli Bauman: Hi, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Eli, you worked in TV as a writer. You worked for the Obama campaign. When did you decide, "There's a musical in this?"

Eli Bauman: I decided that I was going to attempt to have a musical in this in 2016, about eight years to the day after working on the Obama campaign, there was an election that went a very different direction. In order to not cry, I just started laughing maniacally to myself alone. I just went, "Wow, wow. How did this happen?" I guess this musical was my attempt to answer that question. I'd never written a musical before. I had never written a song really before. I just started and here we are, now we're off Broadway, so.

Alison Stewart: TJ what were you doing before this gig?

TJ Wilkins: Oh, before this gig, I was working as an actor in Los Angeles and then also like most actors, I was working as a wedding singer too, a recording artist. Staying in all facets of entertainment. When I got the call to meet Eli, and he was working on this project that he was really tight-lipped about, I was like, "Oh, yes, I'm down, let's do it." When I met him and started to see the work, I told him, I said, "Man, I don't know what this is, but this is going to be amazing."

Alison Stewart: What was the audition like when you went up for Obama?

TJ Wilkins: Oh, it's a funny story, so I'll tell the original.

Alison Stewart: First of all, no cursing.

TJ Wilkins: Oh, yes, no cursing.

Eli Bauman: We were on air. We were given clear instructions.

TJ Wilkins: Oh, yes. I competed on the voice back in 2014, and one of my fellow cast members on the Voice on my season called me one day, and she says, "Hey, Teej, there's a guy that I'm working with in this band that I'm working with. They're doing all these vocal sessions. I think you'd be great for it." I said, "Okay. Yes." She gave Eli my number, and we spoke.

I was already just taken by the man because he was so funny on the phone. I'm like, "You know what? I'm going to go down to the studio and record some of the songs," and after what the first session, we just decided we were fast friends, and we just started recording.

Eli Bauman: Also, TJ, we should-- The first demos were done by me. At a certain point, you go, "We've got to upgrade this," especially since the title of the song that we were singing was called How Black is Too Black. You can imagine me--

Alison Stewart: Sang by a nice Jewish boy.

Eli Bauman: You can imagine me singing the demo. The answer to that question was, "It could be blacker than this." I had TJ come down and do the demo. Again, we fell in love platonically as brothers. Then when it came time to actually cast the part, I was like, "I already know my guy. It's the first guy." It is one of those weird things where it's like when you know you know.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting because TJ is a handsome man, but he doesn't necessarily look like Barack Obama, and Shanice, who plays Michelle Obama, doesn't look like Michelle Obama either. Was that a point? Did you do that on purpose?

Eli Bauman: Kind of. It was certainly not a priority to find people who looked the same. One thing I said to TJ and Shanice, and to Chad Dorick, who plays Biden, who looks nothing like Joe Biden either, he's about 40 and moonwalks and has a six pack are Joe Biden. I said, just capture the essence of the person. That's all I care about.

I actually think the sooner our audience forgets that it's a real person, the better. Our Mitch McConnell, who's played by Larry Cedar, has a legit ponytail and he's just rocked that ponytail since we first started. I've not gotten one single person being like, "Why does Mitch McConnell have a ponytail?" I was like, "Because Larry has a ponytail."

Alison Stewart: We are talking about the Off Broadway production of the Obama era musical 44 The Musical at The Daryl Roth Theatre. My guests are composer and writer Eli Bauman and TJ Wilkins, who plays President Obama. What characteristics did you take from Obama, TJ, and what did you decide, leave that to the impersonators? There's a difference.

TJ Wilkins: Oh, my goodness. The characteristics that I had to take were obviously the speech pattern. President Obama is so distinct, and to really capture the essence of him, I had to talk like this the whole nine, but also have it grounded in realism, because again, it's character instead of caricature. Also, his walk, his body language, certain mannerisms I just picked up on to really help me with my artistic choices. Eli gave us freedom to create our own.

Alison Stewart: What was hard to pick up about Obama?

TJ Wilkins: The hardest part to pick up about Obama was really the internal stuff. You see a guy like that, and he's seems like he's always cool, even under pressure, and I'm like, "How do you just remain cool?" You catch Bin Laden and you're like, "We got him." It's like, "Wait, what?" In order to do that, I read some of the books, Dreams From My Father, which was a really, really helpful book, just to understand the man behind the office and inform some of the choices that we make in the show. It was tough. I won't say it was tough. It was work. It was the work. When you want to do a great job as an actor, you do the work. It's great.

Alison Stewart: Eli, the show is irrelevant. What am I saying? Irreverent. Thank you.

Eli Bauman: I hope it's not irrelevant.

Alison Stewart: Irreverent.

Eli Bauman: Though I'm like, "Tell it how you see it." Come on, Alison, what else you got?

Alison Stewart: No, it's irreverent, but it does touch on serious subjects as well. How did you figure out the right balance?

Eli Bauman: Iit's a good question. I won't say any names, but I had someone come up fairly early in the process and be like, "I was laughing so hysterically, and then I started crying," and I was like, "What is that." I was like, "I don't know. That's what life is like, isn't it? It's not all one thing or the other." I think funnily enough, from minute one, the thing I was trying to avoid in this was middle of the road fluff, empty iceberg lettuce calories.

I was like, "I just want people to feel stuff." That's what's important to me. Whether they're laughing or crying, or somewhere in those zones, it's why I'm always like, "I don't care if people hate it. I just hope that they're not indifferent." To me, I like to laugh. If there were definitely a moment where I was like, "The Sandy Hook mass shooting was such a thing," and I was like, "It's dishonest to avoid it. It's convenient to avoid it." That's what a lot of politicians do. They just avoid stuff that's inconvenient.

Artistically, I feel like that's a coward's way out, so I'd rather just own it. Same thing with racial stuff. Look, I'm not the perfect messenger, but I was more comfortable with taking on criticism from people being like, "This white dude doesn't get it," than being like, "This white dude just avoided it completely." You got to tell it how it is, how you see it, and live with the results.

Alison Stewart: TJ, what do you see as Obama's arc in the play?

TJ Wilkins: Wow. I see just the journey of what it takes to be a Black man in this country, ascending to the highest office in the country, and all of the stuff that you have to deal with, especially race, is a thing that we don't shy away from. We have to confront it head on and acknowledge that it exists because it's real. Obama deals with a lot of that, but then also he balances being a husband and a father while holding the highest office in the nation, being the leader of the free world.

You still have to have dinner with your wife. You still have to be a husband and date, and do all of those things, and at the same time, be a leader that everybody's counting on. Along the way, I feel that Obama, toward the beginning of the show, he's wondering, "Can I really do this?" We find out without no pun intended, but yes, he can.

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear TJ singing a song called How Black is Too Black. Where does this come in the show?

TJ Wilkins: Eli?

Eli Bauman: It's towards the beginning of the show. This is the first demo. This is the one I was talking about earlier. Just imagine that at one point a 40-year-old Jewish man was singing this front part, and then be thankful that it's not that anymore.

Alison Stewart: This is from 44, The Musical.

[music - TJ Wilkins: How Black is Too Black]

There's some dancing going on, which is what you hear in the audience reacting to. Who's the choreographer? What rehearsals do you do? What does the dance tell us?

TJ Wilkins: Oh, my goodness. I have to give a shout out to our choreographer, Ms. James Alsop, who's incredible and who in this rehearsal process was very collaborative, saw what I could do and said, okay, do that and I'm going to give you some stuff and let's tell a story through the dance.

In this particular number, I literally go on almost a chronological journey of Black dance moves, which is so fun, because again, it's all storytelling and hearing people react to like dances that they used to do at parties. We go pretty deep from dances in the '50s, '60s, all the way up to now. In that song in particular, it's really given as much Blackness as we can.

Eli Bauman: Also, I just want to shout out our music director, who is also my creative partner very early in this process, which is Anthony Brewster. The band, which is called House of Vibe. That band has played together for 15, 20 years. When you hear all of that, there is so much nuance and tightness and feel that goes on with our band. They are so much like the heartbeat of the show, because you can't dance to anything if you can't feel it in your foot, and those guys can put it in your foot, so.

Alison Stewart: How much you've had to change this production since it started?

Eli Bauman: From a creative standpoint, or from a news cycle?

Alison Stewart: The first time you're on stage, because I saw it a long time ago, and you said you have to come back.

Eli Bauman: Oh, yes. You will see an entirely different show month to month.

Alison Stewart: Do you make those shifts?

Eli Bauman: Oh, yes. I do. It keeps me creatively engaged. It keeps our cast. Again, we've had a remarkable amount of continuity, so I like to torture people by changing stuff just to keep it interesting. I would say we've been actually remarkably Teflon to the news cycle. There's no Trump in this musical, which has helped. That was a good bet early on.

I've tried not to alter too much based on what's going on in the news, because that's a losing battle. I change stuff all the time. I get passionate about some stuff. Stuff comes in and out. We always joke about it. There's probably three different musicals just of stuff that's been cut. Some of it is for the best that you'll never hear, but some of them are good.

Alison Stewart: Was it hard to get people to sign on initially to support this?

Eli Bauman: Yes and no. I feel like on the creative end, no. I think there's obviously some people who are nervous, I would say now I am a fighter by nature, so I'm like, "Let's go. Let's get in the trenches and see what's up." I think there's reticence among some people. Interestingly enough, we've actually had a lot of Republicans see the show. One's in my family and one's not in my family and have loved the show.

I think people are scared for the wrong reasons, I suppose. All I know is once anyone has signed on, they've been converts. We've left every place we've been on a high with people wanting for us to come back. That's all I take with me is the proof's in the pudding.

Alison Stewart: The show is called 44 The Musical. It opened at the Daryl Roth Theatre at 101 East 15th Street. Thanks to Eli Bauman and TJ Wilkins, who plays Obama. Thanks for coming in.

Eli Bauman: Thank you, Alison. Appreciate you.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much.