TRUMP'S ISLAND Only 2016 Play to Correctly Predict Election

When The Simpsons predicted a President Trump in their episode "Bart to the Future" in 2000, it was more gag than guarantee. But comedy has a knack of getting at the truth via the path of least resistance. Now Brian Wallace's new parody, Trump's Island, for better or worse, is the newest example of punchline prophecy as it is the only new play that predicted the outcome of Election 2016.

Set on Gilligan's Island, the satire imagines the current president-elect washing ashore on a shipwrecked yacht. The iconic castaways have the same reaction to Trump as the general election polls did, only to elect the brash mogul as their leader in a stunning upset.

"We all voted for Trump," marvels the Professor. "Despite what we know about him, despite what we said about him. How does this happen? He's the most repugnant political figure since Huey Long ate a baby on the radio!"

This wasn't the only example of American theater to take on the election in 2016. Famed monologist Mike Daisey brought us The Trump Card, which dissected the reality star's influence. Daisey presented the piece at the La Jolla Playhouse and at the Broad Theater in Santa Monica, in addition to making the script freely available to anyone who wanted to produce it. One of the country's flagship theaters, The Public Theater in New York (where Wallace himself performed in the cast of the Pulitzer-nominated drama The Good Negro), staged Richard Nelson's Women of a Certain Age, a drama that premiered in real time on election night.

But Trump's Island was the only play to actually make the call. Produced at Wallace's own expense, the satire received a short run in New York at Manhattan Rep in late October, and was presented as a staged reading at The Open Space Café Theater in West Los Angeles this past Sunday.

The play never endorsed a candidate, but Wallace understands that the "accomplishment" of having such good aim might not be comforting to many in a deeply divided nation. Still, his outlook remains optimistic.

"No matter what you woke up to today, it is still safe to laugh," he says. "None of us has ever been the first to be disappointed. The only thing that lasts forever is a sense of humor, and as long as you have one, you will only ever lose so much."

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