When Alonzo Fields accepted a job as a butler at the White House in 1931, his plan was to work there for the winter. That winter lasted 21 years. Based on the real-life story of the grandson of a freed slave who grew up in an all-black town in southern Indiana, Fields is forced by the Depression to give up his dreams of becoming an opera singer and accept the job at the White House where he quickly was appointed Chief Butler and served four U.S. presidents and their families: Culled from Fields’ private papers, diaries and interviews, Looking Over the President’s Shoulder has played at major theaters across the country including Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.