MOVIES : Off-Centerpiece : Repeat After Us: It’s Just a Spoof, It’s Just a Spoof

Michael Eisner for President? Hey, in this wacky election year, why not?

That’s what satirist, writer and now playwright Jamie Malanowski figures. A casting call has gone out for his Off Broadway production of “This Happy, Happy Land,” which will feature an Eisner “act-alike” in the central role as President of the United States.

In the play, Eisner, chairman of the Walt Disney Co., takes over the country following a constitutional crisis and, in the process, “America is Disneyized,” said Malanowski, who based his play on a story he wrote for Spy magazine last fall. “Disneyized,” Malanowski says, means “like Disney World. You get the impression everything’s well painted, well maintained, orderly . . . and there’s a kind of creepiness to it all.”

No specifics beyond a one-line summary are being given out in advance of the play’s debut: “An irreverent scenario of what life in America might be like when a series of bizarre but legal circumstances cause the United States to be governed by the executives who run the Disney corporation.”

But a fortunate few attended a reading in February of “This Happy, Happy Land” by friends of Malanowski and veteran New York theater producer Martin Charnin at the Public Theater in New York.

This time around, the qualifications for casting are a bit more particular: It’s critical the actors “act-alike” more than be just look-alikes of their real-life counterparts George Bush, J. Danforth Quayle plus White House regulars James Baker and Marlin Fitzwater. Casting for former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu is stiffer, requiring a performer who “would be rounder” and could parody “the more Byzantine aspects of (his) personality,” Charnin said.

Of the 11 speaking parts, the key ones are Eisner; his wife, Jane, and Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, whom Spy derisively refers to as “Sparky” in its pages.

Lest the media feel left out, there are parts for Ted Koppel, Ed Bradley, Mary Hart and Tina Brown (“Nightline,” “60 Minutes,” “Entertainment Tonight” and “Vanity Fair,” respectively).

Charnin says the work isn’t at all mean-spirited. It’s meant to poke holes at the policies and politics of the president and his circle--traditions that’ll probably hold forth through this administration and future ones. “Timeless,” he calls it.

Producers are hopeful that “This Happy, Happy Land,” a one-act, will be ready in time to bow the same night as the opening of the Democratic National Convention on July 13.

Meanwhile, Malanowski’s script for “Mr. Stupid Goes to Washington” is making the rounds of Hollywood.