Consider her as an influencer earlier than Instagram — method earlier than.

Alice Lee Roosevelt, the oldest little one of President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, was an enormous superstar in her day. Right now, she’s largely forgotten, overshadowed by her cousin Eleanor, who went on to marry one other relative, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and change into an influential first woman.

However though Alice by no means tackled the kind of social points as her cousin did, her story stays memorable. This weekend, will probably be launched to a brand new era, within the student-written and -directed “White Home Princess,” an unique musical retelling of Alice’s life, introduced by Sunday on the Agassiz Theatre.

Alice, who was born in 1884, “was extraordinarily well-known for a lot of the twentieth century, and nobody our age is aware of her identify,” mentioned Maureen Clare ’24, one of many new musical’s two playwrights and its government producer.

The results of a three-year collaboration between Clare, the author of two Hasty Pudding musicals, and Charlotte Daniels ’24, who’s pursuing a twin Harvard-Berklee Faculty of Music diploma, the musical comedy is being staged within the era-appropriate Agassiz, which was in-built 1904.

“White Home Princess” opens with Teddy’s ascension to the presidency after William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 and runs by Alice’s loss of life in 1980. However the central motion takes place over the household’s White Home years, which resulted in 1909.

Alice was then a style-setter and rule-breaker, which the present depicts partly by having her father (performed by Jeremy Ornstein ’24) sing about his frustration along with his eldest daughter, whilst he acknowledges that she is rather like him.

The sensation, defined Daniels, who can be the present’s vocal-music director, was mutual. “She liked her father, and he or she actually needed to be like him.”

Sure by the gender roles of the time, Alice couldn’t comply with in her father’s political footsteps. Nor did she inherit the twenty sixth president’s ardour for reform. “She didn’t battle for suffrage. She didn’t do something that could possibly be listed on paper,” defined Clare.

Searching for a up to date instance, Clare likens the impetuous and influential Alice to a Kardashian — solely in a world the place there have been few different feminine celebrities. In contrast to her cousin Eleanor or, say, Marie Curie, who had received the Nobel Prize for her pioneering analysis into radioactivity in 1903, Alice was well-known for merely being herself.

Alice “made social change that’s not quantifiable,” mentioned Clare. She cites examples highlighted within the present: “Alice wears pants, and due to the facility of her persona, individuals noticed her and mentioned, ‘Oh, possibly I can try this too.’ She crashes a automobile, and out of the blue it’s much more regular for a lady to simply get behind the wheel.”

“It’s not what she’s going for. It simply sort of occurs,” mentioned Clare. “It’s what she leaves in her wake that we’re fascinated by.”

In some methods, the creators agree, their protagonist might come throughout as egocentric. Nevertheless, Lollie McKenzie ‘26, the present’s director, involves her protection. “I might query whether or not we’d ask the identical of some male historic figures who did worse and way more egocentric issues than simply attempting to hunt happiness,” she mentioned.

“She issues sufficient to spend many, many hours occupied with her and getting inside her head and her household and her life,” continued McKenzie, who famous that she got here to this mission “from an actor’s perspective.” Though the sophomore final yr directed “Put up Mortem,” the first-year musical, her earlier theatrical expertise was largely on-stage, together with taking part in Matilda within the Roald Dahl-inspired musical of the identical identify in London’s West Finish.

In “White Home Princess,” as in life, Alice’s foil was Eleanor, who appeared extra conventional than her rambunctious cousin. (McKenzie known as her “a picture-perfect Victorian.”) However Eleanor’s long-term relationship with journalist Lorena “Hick” Hickok broke different guidelines.

Although Eleanor is in the present day thought of a feminist icon and Alice is essentially forgotten, each ladies questioned “how you can exist and be completely happy” regardless of social restrictions, mentioned Daniels. “Alice isn’t allowed to precise herself the way in which that she desires to and do the issues that she desires to. And Eleanor isn’t allowed to like the individual she desires,” she mentioned.

Based mostly largely on materials from Houghton Library’s Theodore Roosevelt Assortment, the manufacturing incorporates video and slides of letters projected on the perimeters of the stage. An accompanying exhibit within the Horner Room of the Agassiz Theatre will show a collection of archival materials, which audiences can view earlier than and after the present.

Following Saturday’s matinee, Harvard President Emerita Drew Gilpin Faust will be part of the 2 playwrights for a talk-back about writing about feminine historic figures.

“One factor concerning the present is everybody’s going to get one thing from it,” mentioned McKenzie. “Whether or not it’s studying extra concerning the historic interval or simply purely having fun with and having enjoyable.”

“White Home Princess” runs by Sunday on the Agassiz Theatre in Cambridge. Faust’s discuss follows the two p.m. matinee.