Inside the Glittering, Terrifying World of MAGA Women: ROTUS comes to The Edinburgh Fringe

In ROTUS: Receptionist Of The United States, Irish playwright Leigh Douglas offers a ferocious, funny, and deeply unsettling look into the ultra-glam world of women working under Donald Trump. Inspired by real-life MAGA figures like Cassidy Hutchinson and Kayleigh McEnany—and filtered through a lens of drag, satire, and queer defiance—Douglas’s one-woman show tears into the pop-politics pipeline with biting wit and a beauty-pageant smile. With ROTUS making its explosive debut at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, we sat down with Douglas to talk Instagram deep-dives, hyper-femininity, and why the scariest thing in politics might just be a Whole Foods bag.

Who or what inspired the character of Chastity Quirke? 

In 2022, midway through the January 6th hearings on the insurrection on the US Capitol, I was watching the news. The anchor was theorizing as to who the secret star witness the following day might be. All the experts were convinced it would be a top player in the Trump administration (a.k.a one of the many men in their fifties with a reason to look for immunity). The moment in the hearing the following day when Cassidy Hutchinson walked out was electric. She was twenty-five years old, an assistant in the West Wing, and she was testifying that Donald Trump knowingly incited the violence on January 6th. I watched, transfixed. The star witness was a girl my age with nothing to fall back on after betraying Trump world. This was the moment I first became obsessed with the glamorous young women of MAGA who are “making America hot again.” Chastity Quirke is inspired by Cassidy Hutchinson, former White House Communications Director, Alyssa Farah, former Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, as well as women still loyal to Trump like White House Press Secretaries, Karoline Leavitt and Kayleigh McEnany. These women’s stories overlap and diverge but they are all defined by the stretch of their loyalty to Donald Trump.

How much of ROTUS is real and how much is satire?

There is a kernel of truth to almost every detail of ROTUS. Cassidy Hutchinson alleges in her book, Enough, that she was handed a Whole Foods bag full of classified documents in the final hours of the Trump administration. Thus, in ROTUS, Chastity Quirke’s boss gives her a Whole Foods bag full of documents to burn. I have borrowed several lines in defence of MAGA from the stylings of Karoline Leavitt. The characters are all fictional amalgamations of real Trump figures past and present. In every iteration of Trump world, he has surrounded himself with different versions of the same archetypal figures. We have the behind the scenes playmakers in Mark Meadows and Elon Musk, the young hot blonde new moms behind the Press Secretary podium in Kayleigh McEnany and Karoline Leavitt. But the show is also inspired by drag performance. There is real fun to be had in embodying people whose views you totally and utterly abhor.

What does ROTUS say about women working in conservative politics today?

Conservative women today, particularly in the United States, represent a marriage made in hell between the beauty influencer industry and real political power. There is no denying conservatism is on trend. Massive hits like Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, America’s Sweethearts and viral trad wives on social media are not divorced enough from what is happening in Washington. Conservatism is no longer simply an end to the political spectrum, it is a cultural moment as ubiquitous as the millennium bug or the 1980s powersuit. Donald Trump has blurred the lines between pop culture and politics to such an extent that West Wing staffers art side hustling fashion collabs on their personal social media as a perk of the job. Welcome to late stage capitalism.  

How did you go about building a character who is so different from yourself - a queer woman playing a conservative White House receptionist?

Queer people have used performance to speak truth to power for as long as performance has existed. Of course I’ve stalked the women of MAGA on instagram going back ten years. I’ve watched endless clips of Karoline Leavitt behind the podium at White House press briefings. I’ve even read some articles in The Conservateur, the official magazine of the “Make America Hot Again” movement. But I’ve also gone to some of my favourite London queer venues, like The Divine and The Queer Comedy Club, to watch drag artists and how they perform hyper-femininity through a comedic lens. 

What kind of reactions have you had from audiences in the US and the UK? Any major similarities, or differences?

ROTUS will be premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. It is absolutely an aspiration to bring ROTUS to the United States. As an Irish playwright, theatre is protest. As a dual-American citizen, is it important to stand against what is happening in American politics. There is certainly a novelty for UK audiences in the Americana of sorority sisters, Southern accents, and loud and proud Jesus loving which is more pedestrian for US audiences. UK audiences recognize these very real tropes of US society from the iconography of Hollywood rom coms whereas for US audiences, Chastity is the girl they went to high school with. I hope when a US audience does get to see ROTUS it will be a cathartic, invigorating experience for US audiences and a rallying cry for those who feel disenfranchised under the current administration.

What role do you think humour plays in talking about uncomfortable topics?

Humour is absolutely central to dealing with discomfort (at least for queer people and the Irish–two demographics I happen to represent). There is a reason why some of the best artwork is made in times of crisis. Whether it be Charlie Chaplin’s making The Great Dictator in the first year of World War II, or Freddie Mercury making some of the greatest hits of the 80s at the height of the AIDs crisis. When my Dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer out of the blue at fifty-five years old, the whole experience was so horrific, there were moments when all we could do was laugh. I’m also the kind of girl who will crack jokes while I’m being dumped. At the end of the day, laughter is the best medicine in death, breakups and society.

Leigh Douglas’s ROTUS: Receptionist Of The United States is at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until the 24th August. For tickets and more information, visit:: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:5380/