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Heard on the Hill: Songs in the Key of Wife

The Capitol Steps are so thrilled to have former Speaker and for-the-moment Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich back in their lives that they plan to sing about it all weekend long.

The show-tune-loving satirists haven’t really touched the pugnacious politician since Gingrich left Congress after the 1998 elections. But he’s back, and the Steps are ready to shine a light on Gingrich’s famously wandering eye.

The tongue-in-cheek tribute, “Three Little Wives of Newt” — a parody of “Three Little Maids From School” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” — is like a greatest hits of Gingrich’s personal misses, culminating in this ripped-from-the-headlines zinger:

(NEWT enters)

ALL: Three little wives, who all unwary, chose an adulterous hound to marry.

NEWT: Now, a divorce is necessary.

CAL: (spoken) What??

NEWT: (spoken) That’s right! I got myself a real Sugar Momma!

NEWT: I’ve found someone who will pay! It’s sweet little …

ALL: Fannie Mae!

The song, however, has stirred up an intratroupe controversy.

The Steps have only two female performers. So when they take the stage Friday at the Ronald Reagan Building, expect to see Mrs. Gingrich 3.0, Callista, portrayed by a man in drag.

Producer Elaina Newport is just hoping the wig she’s special-ordered to try to reproduce Callista’s signature coif — “Have you seen her hair? It doesn’t move,” Newport says of the seemingly bulletproof bob — will arrive in time.

Meanwhile, Newport let HOH know exactly where comedians stand on the whole 2012 election.

“We don’t think about the good of the country. We just want someone who’s funny and whose name rhymes with lots of stuff,” she admits.

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