OUR AMERICAN QUEEN Comes to Bridewell Theatre Next Year

Starring Wallis Currie-Wood (Stevie McCord in Madam Secretary, CBS), a new dramatisation of the life of Kate Chase will draw parallels between 19th and 21st century America, and the glass ceiling that's yet to be smashed in American politics. Although widely forgotten now, Kate Chase was one of the most astute political minds in America at a time when women weren't yet allowed to vote. Circumventing lack of opportunities for herself, she became a strong supporter of her widowed father's three attempts – and failures – to achieve the presidency, which would have made her acting First Lady. Our American Queen charts a few months of her political life and her calculated but ultimately disastrous decisions in marriage, choosing a seemingly advantageous one over one for love.

Kate Chase is played by Wallis Currie-Wood, best known for her role of Stephanie “Stevie” McCord, daughter of the title character in the six seasons of CBS series Madam Secretary. She's joined by Tom Victor (John Villiers in Mary & George) as the man she loves, John Hay, who she sacrifices for a more beneficial marriage. Haydn Hoskins takes on the role of General McClellan, with two final cast members to be announced as Mrs Eastman and Kate's father, Ohio politician, Treasury Secretary and later Chief Justice Salmon P Chase.

Our American Queen is presented by the Brooklyn-based arts organisation the american vicarious, which will also present the political drama Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley at Wilton's Music Hall from 3–7 February, following its 2023 run at Stone Nest. Earlier this year, the company premiered the genre-defying Fight for America! at Stone Nest.

Director Christopher McElroen said, “The more I learned about Kate Chase, the more I wondered how such a formidable figure could be almost forgotten. It's a deeply human story — one of love and acceptance in a world that measures a woman's worth by how well she reflects the men around her. And while her world belonged to the nineteenth century, the pressures she faced — to be perfect, to be admired, to survive by playing the game — feel strikingly modern. In that way, Kate's story is as much about us as it is about her.”

Kate Chase was born in 1840, the daughter of Salmon P Chase, the sixth Chief Justice of the United States who served as the Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln. Educated in New York, Kate returned to Washington to act as her widowed father's social hostess, earning the title “The Belle of Washington Society.” Celebrated for her beauty, intellect, and extravagant style, she became a leading figure in the capital's elite circles and a rival to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. She used her social influence to promote her father's presidential ambitions resulting in speculation that her marriage to wealthy Governor William Sprague in 1863 was largely to further his political career. The marriage ended in 1882 with rumours of affairs on both sides. When she died in poverty at the age of 58 in 1899, The Enquirer wrote "No Queen has ever reigned under the Stars and Stripes, but this remarkable woman came closer to being Queen than any American woman has."