He hit “pause,” and I took out the earbuds. The snippet I’d heard was rough—just a demo, Scarborough reminded me, sung by a friend of his—but in a month, he’d visit a New York City studio to produce a more polished version. There, David Cook, Taylor Swift’s band director, would man the soundboard, and Rory O’Malley, who currently brings down the house as King George III in Hamilton, would handle the vocal work. After that, Scarborough and his agent, Ari Emanuel, would have what they needed to start lining up financial backers to stage a production. Scarborough’s wide, expectant smile belied any insecurity, any sense that this might be a daunting field to jump into.
I asked him if he was sure that people—not to mention Broadway audiences—would still be interested in Trump after November. “Oh yeah,” Scarborough replied. “There’s enough general-interest knowledge about this guy that I can write basically whatever I want to write.” He got even more excited as images of ovations and Tony Awards seemed to flicker in his eyes. “People are like, ‘Well, what if he wins?’ ” Scarborough said. “I go, ‘That’s even better!’ ”
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