The week after Hillary Rodham Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, she said there were times when all she wanted to do was curl up with a good book or her dogs and never leave the house again.
And, some of that she did. She read books. She did yoga. She spent time in nature. In fact, the first time she was spotted in public after her concession speech, Clinton was hiking in the woods near her Chappaqua home with her husband, former President Bill Clinton. They were lost in thought when they met a young woman, Margot Gerster, hiking with her baby and dog. Gerster, who was heartbroken that Sec. Clinton lost, gave her a hug. Later that day, she posted a photo on social media, which quickly went viral.
A week later, Clinton honored a commitment she made before the election to Marian Wright Edelman, then president of the Children’s Defense Fund, to deliver the keynote speech at a celebration of an inspiring group of children who had beaten the odds. Though it was hard for her to imagine giving that speech so soon after the election loss, Marian told her it was crucial, Clinton recounted in her memoir What Happened. She gave the speech.
Clinton was not fine at all during this dark time, she wrote. But she knew she would be okay eventually.
When Clinton emerged in public, it was not where people might have expected. One place she could be found was in a seat at a packed theatre at a Broadway or off-Broadway show. It was where she could lose herself, a balm of sorts, to heal from her stunning defeat.
“I really needed to get replenished,” Clinton told Michael Paulson of The New York Times about the weeks and months after Donald Trump was elected. “I felt so drained and hollowed out by the 2016 election—everything that happened. It seemed like a very bad play … one thing after another … cue the Russians, cue Comey, cue WikiLeaks—it just never seemed to end.”
In early 2017, when audiences began to spot Clinton at shows—The Color Purple, The Humans, In Transit, and Sunset Boulevard—they embraced her. People applauded or gave her standing ovations. They snapped selfies; then posted their photos with her on social media. Even Clinton got in on the act, posting photos with her supporters—or backstage with the casts of the shows she attended.
But the adulation in the theatre—and stories from people mourning her loss—were not easy for Clinton. The first few times she attended shows, it was “challenging and even a little painful,” Clinton said. “There were so many people who came up to see me who wanted to share their feelings about the election.”
Heather Hitchens, president of the American Theatre Wing, said in The New York Times, that it didn’t surprise her that Clinton wanted to spend her time this way. “She’s always been a strong supporter of the arts.” In turn, she said the theatre community was grateful for her presence.
Clinton, though, was not new to theatre. In fact, Clinton from the time she was a young girl, adored theatre—even before seeing any shows. She collected cast albums and she recalls wearing out her 1967 Camelot soundtrack from playing it so many times.
As a sixth grader, she tried her hand at playwriting. She wrote a play about herself and her four best friends traveling to Europe. Her teacher let them produce it, which Clinton acknowledged was a “treat.”
Then in high school, Clinton auditioned for the musical, Bye Bye Birdie, even though she couldn’t sing very well. “I love music and I love to sing,” she told Rosie O’Donnell on her show in February 1997, while she was first lady. “But I can’t carry a tune at all. Not even in the shower.” The director, whom she was friends with, cast her in the chorus on one condition—that she lip sync and not sing! Clinton then had her moment to sing—not lip sync—the song, “Telephone Hour,” from Bye Bye Birdie live with Rosie.
As a college student, Clinton attended her first Broadway musical, Hair, with a small group of friends. Though the performance was sold out, the box office told the students that if they hung around, they could be admitted in “standing room only” at intermission. True to their word, they were admitted for the second act. “It was thrilling,” Clinton said. She was hooked.
Her passion for all things theatre continued. When she became a mother to daughter, Chelsea, she knew she would share her love of theatre with her—and then later, pass it along to her grandchildren. “It’s really one of my cherished roles, being an audience member, whether I’m watching my granddaughter’s eyes light up at Frozen or feeling new appreciation for lines from King Lear,” Clinton told the audience at Women’s Day on Broadway in 2020.
The productions she enjoys most are ones that tell important stories. She also likes shows in which she has a personal connection to an artist, producer, or to its subject matter. For instance, as a former U.S. senator from New York during 9/11, Clinton was drawn to the musical, Come From Away, a story based on the events in Gander, Newfoundland, when planes were forced to land there the week after the attack.
She also attended The Ferryman, a play about the Northern Ireland peace process. Clinton had played a supporting role in the peace process both as first lady, traveling to Northern Ireland with the president, and as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, in a diplomatic capacity.
Given that Clinton is a national figure, she soon became the subject of a few theatrical productions: Clinton the Musical (2012), a show about two Bill Clintons and Hillary as they navigate a quest to save the presidency; Hillary and Clinton (2019), a play about Hillary’s 2008 campaign in an alternate universe; and Soft Power (2019), a “play with a musical” featuring a fictionalized Sec. Clinton in a reimagination of American politics. None, though, she could bring to see for herself.
She did, however, attend The Inheritance, a play not about her specifically, but one that included scenes about the expectation that she would win the presidential election. The show, she reportedly said, was “incredibly touching” but also “painful.”
In the last few years, the curtain has risen on Hillary Clinton, herself.
She was cast in her first professional musical in 2022 where she provided a pre-recorded voice cameo playing the offstage “giant” in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, at Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock where Bill Clinton served as governor. No singing was required. After the initial recording, Clinton was finished and it was played offstage at every performance thereafter.
She also played the one-night-only celebrity cameo role in 2024 in Gutenberg! The Musical!, as the “famous Broadway producer.”
In the summer of 2023, Clinton signed on for something momentous. A young musical theatre creator, Shaina Taub, wrote Clinton, a fierce defender of women’s rights, a letter inviting her to joined several producers on a musical called Suffs, about the women who fought for the right to vote.
Though Hillary had never met Taub, she considered her request, ultimately saying, “Why not?”
“I’m interested in producing good content,” Clinton reportedly said. “I think it matters what stories are told and who the stories are about. And I want to be part of that in some way.”
In October 2023, Clinton, along with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, joined the Broadway producing team, making her the first former first lady to produce a Broadway show. Clinton attended rehearsals and previews. On opening night, April 18, 2024, she walked out on stage and the theatre erupted with cheers and applause. Suffs went on to win two Tony awards. A national tour of the production has been running all year.
Since then, other presidential couples have dabbled in theatre production. Most recently a new version of the play Proof, was co-produced by Michelle and Barack Obama. The show ran for four months earlier this year.
Over time, the theatre, for Clinton, became more than a place to heal. A tireless advocate for women, Clinton championed gender equity in theatre and used theatre as a vehicle for civic engagement.
At Women’s Day on Broadway, an event timed to International Women’s Day in 2020, Clinton gave the closing keynote address, focusing on the challenges facing women in theatre: the lack of affordable child care, especially for those who work late into the evenings, the gender pay gap and unconscious bias against women.
Addressing these inequalities isn’t “just about people running for office,” Clinton said. “It’s about changing minds and hearts and it really matters when women’s stories are told on the most high-profile stages in America.”
In 2022, at BroadwayCon, a convention for Broadway fans, Clinton moderated a panel with four leading actresses: Vanessa Williams, Julie White, LaChanze and Donna Murphy. They shared their thoughts on tough issues facing women in theatre, including the lack of female directors, the differences between male-led versus female-led productions and barriers women face.
Hillary returned to her alma mater, Wellesley College, in late 2025, moderating another conversation with playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith, titled, “Civics, Storytelling, and the Arts.” The two discussed the role of theatre and language in bridging divisions.
And this year, Clinton continued to do more.
She had a personal connection to a new off-Broadway play, Public Charge, which opened in the spring at New York’s Public Theatre. The play follows the rise of Julissa Reynoso, the former ambassador to Uruguay, Spain, and Andorra, who also served as deputy assistant secretary of state under Clinton at the State Department,
The producers came to Clinton to get permission to refer to her in the script. When she read the play, she said she knew it deserved a wide audience.
“It’s a uniquely American story about how our country is made by and better for immigrants, and why all of it is very much worth fighting for,” she reportedly said. Clinton granted them permission and they settled on program language that indicated the play was “produced by special arrangement” with Hillary Clinton.
Clinton attended opening night and spoke in support of the production. Former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden also attended. Reynoso served as Biden’s chief of staff during her first year as first lady.
In July, the curtain rose on Clinton again. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as a narrator with the Arcadia Symphony on a program celebrating America’s 250th birthday. She read the narration for Lincoln Portrait, a work by Aaron Copland, made up of excerpts from speeches by President Abraham Lincoln.
The show was sold out.
Jeanne Ryan Wolfson is an author and communication strategist in the Washington, D.C. area. She is a board member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE).