Our Story
Conceived in 2023-24, and filmed live just before the 2024 election, during the improbable second coming of Trump, our original version of "Trump: The Musical" delivers 83 minutes of hilarious, over-the-top monologues by the Free World's best Trump impersonator and 10 original songs about the Orange One himself.
Donald Trump won’t be defeated by investigative journalism. He won’t be beaten by incisive op-ed pieces. He won’t be stopped by scandals, exposés, progressive PACs, former prosecutors with permanent residency on MSNBC, books by disloyal former staffers, federal charges of treason, ironclad proof of electoral fraud, massive fines, and jury verdicts in civil rape trials. Even bullets are no match for the Orange One! Trump can’t even defeat himself.
How do we deal with an existential threat that becomes more serious the more seriously we treat it? With 90 minutes of musical mockery!
Dictator for a Day is a small ensemble live musical comedy built around a dozen or so original songs in the vein of Mel Brooks’ The Producers; You’re Welcome America, starring Will Ferrell; and the songs of legendary political satirist Tom Lehrer.
Dictator for a Day is MAGA meta-humor wrapped in a modern American songbook so warped Ron DeSantis won’t know whether to hum it or ban it. And it’s all delivered in about an hour and a half with a smile by a former (if you believe the fake news) U.S. President who has mastered the fine art of demented delusional stream-of-consciousness oratory that is not in any way, shape, or form constrained by history, facts, or the laws of physics.
Meet the Team
Rich Herschlag
Author
Rich Herschlag has written and published a dozen books and toured the country repeatedly via radio and on foot spreading the word. His book, "Punk Rock Blitzkrieg" (Touchstone, 2015), was written with Marky Ramone and is the legendary drummer’s outrageous ultimate inside look at the beginnings of punk rock and the evolution of the seminal band that made it all possible. The book spent three weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
Rich Herschlag has been both a professional writer and musician for many years and was a stand-up comic for a few of those years. His background in performance has steered his writing toward creating narration and dialogue the reader can almost literally hear.
Thomas Ryan Ward
Director, Producer
Thomas "Ryan" Ward is a stage and independent film producer/director and performer, published playwright, and new-works collaborator. His collaborators include Fortune 500 CEOs and Academy Award Winners, talented Filmmakers, Actors and Writers (see GBP), and most importantly the amazing Creators he has worked with for over 20 years with people with physical and learning differences through Arts Access South Carolina (formerly the Kennedy Center's VSA program). Ryan is extremely proud of the DFAD Cast, Crew and Production Team who have given their all to make Rich's whacky creations come to life!
Learn more at his IMDb.
JL Cauvin
Co-Writer, "Donald Trump"
J-L Cauvin is a veteran stand-up comedian who became an Internet sensation with over 50 million views of his political impersonations and sketch videos since 2020. He has been seen and heard on The Late Late Show, Howard Stern, Marc Maron's WTF podcast, The Adam Carolla Show and ESPN radio. He has 8 stand-up albums to his credit, 2 weekly podcasts (Making Podcasts Great Again (as Trump) and Rain on Your Parade) and in 2022 made his TV acting debut on Showtime's Billions (Darren Russakoff). In 2023 J-L released his first stand-up special, TALL BOY, and since April 2024, his second special, HALF-BLACKFACE, which delves into his half-Haitian, half-Irish background, has been streaming on Amazon Prime. Check out more at JLCauvin.com
Rory Scholl
"Donald Trump"
Rory Scholl is very excited to be part of the great cast and crew of Dictator For A Day. He is a comic and storyteller and a best selling humorist with his short story Black Sheep as part of the Amazon Storyteller Collection. He is a Moth story slam winner and a frequent guest on the RISK podcast. Rory was in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway show Help by Claudia Rankine at the Shed, and was Julius in the Off-Broadway play Mallorca by Newhart writer Sheldon Bull. Rory has been on The Marvelous Ms Maisel, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, CNN and on the hidden camera show Crowd Control on NatGeo. He is the creative director of ARTPROV, an improvised comedy show based around a guest painters gallery of work, host of the corporate game show The Big Quiz Thing and a veteran of improv comedy having performed in London, Mexico, most of the Caribbean and every state in the US except Hawaii. Someone, please book him in Hawaii. In the corporate world, Rory has written and performed in-house productions for Michaels Arts and Crafts, Disney and Cornell University, where he dressed as the founder of Cornell and traveled around the world for alumni events. This is not his first time portraying the 45th president. In 2020 he traveled the country in the protest art troupe The Trump Statue Initiative. Rory continues to tour as a comedian, and lives in Queens with his cat Lionel. Vote blue!
Sammy "The Deuce" Kassin
"Bernie Sanders"
Sammy “The Deuce” is an extremely talented actor and impressionist with over 70 original characters and celebrity impersonations in his repertoire such as Jackie Mason, Anthony Cuomo, Bernie Sanders, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Joe Biden, Marv Albert and many more.
He recently starred in a major motion picture alongside hockey legend Bret Hull called "The Minor Leaguer" where he played an impersonator of the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. The film is currently streaming on Apple TV , Amazon Prime, and Google Play and is doing very, very well.
He will be starring in a one man tribute show to comedy legend Jackie Mason in Florida. Aside from being a star of screen and stage, The Deuce currently entertains at Clubs, Charity Events, Business Meetings, Weddings, Corporate Events, Parties, and he does TV commercials and voiceover work as well.