He's laughing all the way to the Oval Office

Richard Snee stars as Charles H.P. Smith, a president scrambling to get reelected, in ''November.'' (The Lyric Stage Company of Boston)

Richard Snee doesn't look very presidential. Sipping coffee in a South End cafe after rehearsal for the Lyric Stage Company's New England premiere of "November," Snee looks more like a charming college professor than the leader of the free world.

"I'm not sure what presidential looks like anymore," says Snee, who plays President Charles H.P. Smith in David Mamet's comedy, which starts previews Oct. 17. "I mean, there's what's going on in this play, and then there's reality. It's getting harder to tell the difference."

Mamet's play follows the cheerfully unsophisticated President Smith in the final days of his reelection campaign, when his poll numbers are so low, his party has given up on him, and campaign funds have been cut off. Unprepared for life outside the Oval Office, President Smith schemes to raise money to stay on the job, or at least secure his own financial future. Advising him and trying to keep him from embarrassing himself and his office are his speechwriter (played by Adrianne Krstansky) and his lawyer (Neil A. Casey). Much of the play revolves around his relationship with his speechwriter, who writes brilliant speeches for him even though he disagrees with her on gay rights.

"There seem to be gaps in his knowledge," says Snee. "Eight years ago that would have required some suspension of disbelief, but today it's totally acceptable."

In some ways, Snee says, "November" is an extension of Mamet's screenplay for the 1997 film "Wag the Dog," in which a Hollywood producer and a spin doctor come up with a story to distract citizens from a sex scandal. "That story was told sort of from the outside. This takes place mostly inside the Oval Office," he says.

Like many Mamet plays, "November" toys with a sometimes claustrophobic sense of place and time, but Snee says "November" is less intense than "Glengarry Glen Ross" or "Speed-the-Plow."

"There is no shortage of F-bombs," Snee says, "and there is a strong sense of rhythm to the dialogue, but it's not quite as staccato as his dramas. This is political satire, so it's much lighter."

The biggest challenge for an actor playing a fast-paced comedy like this, Snee says, is in understanding the pace of the audience's laughter.

"The president has a series of phone monologues, with pauses for responses," he says, "and there are bits I think are very funny in rehearsal, but I'm going to have to listen to the audience to know how to ride the laughs."

Of course, Snee is a veteran of numerous comic roles, including the Huntington Theatre's "Present Laughter," the Lyric Stage's "Communicating Doors," and "Shear Madness," as well as many TV and film appearances.

"I've been at this for 24 years now," Snee says, sounding almost surprised, "and I do think it helps to have the experience with comic timing. It's the kind of thing you have to practice to get the feel of it."

Snee also has experience playing a president in Gip Hoppe's "Jackie: An American Life," in which he delivered a hilarious caricature of Richard Nixon. But he says he doesn't try to study other presidents for clues to President Charles H.P. Smith.

"Nixon was so over the top it really doesn't count as a character," he says with a laugh. "The question I have to ask about President Smith is, 'How unsophisticated can he be and still be elected president?'

Through Nov. 15. Tickets: $15-$50. 617-585-5678, lyricstage.com.

Moving on
Next Theatre in Evanston, Ill., plans to announce today that Jason Southerland, the founder and producing artistic director of Boston Theatre Works, has been named its artistic director. The 28-year-old theater, which has a budget of $750,000, workshopped and premiered Tracy Letts's "Killer Joe" and the Obie award-winning show "The Adding Machine."

"Leaving my artistic home in Boston has been a very difficult decision, and I am grateful to all the artists I have worked with here," Southerland said during a rehearsal break at Foothills Theatre, where he is directing "Take Me Out." "But the opportunity to take a larger organization and move it to the next level is tremendously exciting and precisely the challenge I was looking for."

Boston Theatre Works is on hiatus in order to raise money and hopes to return in the spring of 2009, without Southerland.