Jean Bordewich

SNF Agora Visiting Fellow, AY 24-25

As a playwright, Jean Bordewich explores the intersection of history, politics, and the moral choices of people in public life, whose decisions ramify far beyond their own personal experience. Two of Bordewich’s full-length plays are set in Congress: “HUNT,” about the blackmail and suicide of a Senator in the McCarthy era of the 1950s, and “Now’s the Time,” about the titanic political battle over racial equality immediately after the Civil War. Her current play is “Electionland,” which is about the election of 1876 and the electoral college. It was commissioned in 2023 by StoryWorks Theater (San Francisco, CA) and received its first public reading in February 2024 at the President Rutherford B. Hayes historic site in Fremont, OH. “Electionland” will become part of a civic education program, “Teaching the Constitution through Theater,” for high school students.  

Bordewich draws from historical research and more than two decades as a senior Senate and House staff member, political candidate, elected official and campaign manager to bring an authentic, experienced voice to dramas played out at the highest levels of American politics. Her work in the world of philanthropy and non-profits to strengthen U.S. democracy also informs her playwriting. 

Bordewich was staff director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, responsible for the Obama-Biden inauguration in 2013. She also served as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. John Hall and in additional roles for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and other members of Congress.  

After leaving the Senate, Bordewich was part of the U.S. Democracy program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Menlo Park, CA), where her grantmaking sought to strengthen Congress and the electoral process.