Oh, Mary!

Oh, Mary! is a one-act comedy by Cole Escola that turns the weeks before Abraham Lincoln's assassination into a story about his wife. Mary Todd Lincoln is unhappy, volatile and drinking hard, and what she wants most is to get back on stage. The play is an original work, not an adaptation, and its producers bill it as a dark comedy. It does not pretend to be accurate history: the Lincolns, the White House and 1865 are the raw material for the jokes.

Escola wrote the play and created the title role, first Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in early 2024 and then at the Lyceum Theatre, where the Broadway production opened on July 11, 2024. It was Escola's Broadway debut as both writer and performer. Sam Pinkleton directed. In 2025, the production won two Tony Awards, one for Escola's performance and one for Pinkleton's direction, and the script was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

What began as a limited summer engagement has been extended again and again, and the role of Mary has since passed through a string of guest stars. The play has also reached London and launched a North American tour.

It is April 1865 at the White House, Washington, D.C. The Civil War is nearly over, and the President has trouble at home. His wife feels stifled, her moods swing without warning, and she is fond of the bottle. She keeps returning to the same demand: she wants her old life back as a cabaret singer. Her husband refuses, and much of the play follows his attempts to keep her busy and away from the liquor.

Those attempts mostly fail. He and his timid assistant cannot manage to hide the whiskey. Mary is steered into painting lessons, then into cross-stitch, with Louise, her weary chaperone, in tow. The President has a secret of his own. He is deeply closeted, and he and his assistant, Simon, are quietly carrying on an affair.

Running out of ideas, he hires a struggling acting teacher to coach Mary in Shakespeare, hoping the lessons will keep her sober. Teacher and pupil grow close, and Mary's ambitions grow too. She sets her sights on a part in the upcoming production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre during a performance of that very play, so the audience knows something the characters do not.

Escola wrote Oh, Mary! as a single act with no intermission, and the cast list makes a point of its own. Apart from Mary herself, every principal role is billed only by its relation to her: Mary's Husband, Mary's Chaperone, Mary's Husband's Assistant and Mary's Teacher. The program never gives the President his own name; here, he is a supporting character in his wife's story.

The title has a second meaning, too. It borrows an exclamation that gay men have used as slang for decades, a fitting nod in a play whose President keeps his affair with another man a secret.

Mary longs to sing, but this is a play, not a musical. Daniel Kluger wrote original music for the production, and David Dabbon did the arrangements.

Expect a compact evening: 80 minutes, no intermission, and a company of five principal actors. Mary is at the center, with four roles orbiting her, and the actors who play the Chaperone and the Assistant also double in two small parts, Bill and Kyle.

The production hands the title role to a series of guest performers, each for a limited engagement, and some supporting roles change hands too. Two people seeing the show a few months apart may well see two different Marys.

As of October 2026, Bowen Yang plays Mary Todd Lincoln, in a run that began on September 15, 2026, marks his Broadway debut and is scheduled through January 17, 2027. Phillip James Brannon plays Mary's Husband and Barrett Foa is Mary's Teacher. Bianca Leigh (Mary's Chaperone) and Tony Macht (Mary's Husband's Assistant) both belonged to the original company. Hannah Solow, who has also played Mary on Broadway, understudies the title role and the Chaperone.

The marketing carries a theatrical in-joke of its own. The yellow poster, with red and black lettering framing a round photo of the star in costume, was designed as a deliberate nod to the 1939 Broadway poster for Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes.

Oh, Mary! had its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, with a first preview on January 26, 2024, and an opening on February 8, 2024. It was originally booked to end on March 24, 2024, was extended more than once and finally closed on May 12, 2024.

On April 24, 2024, while the Off-Broadway run was still going, a move to the Lyceum Theatre was announced as a limited summer engagement. Previews began on June 26, 2024, and the official opening followed on July 11, 2024. The same five actors who had opened the play Off-Broadway came with it: Escola as Mary, Conrad Ricamora as her husband, James Scully as the Teacher, Bianca Leigh as the Chaperone and Tony Macht as the Assistant.

The Broadway run was first set to end on September 15, 2024. Within two weeks of opening, it was pushed to November 10, then to January 19, 2025, and in December 2024 to June 28, 2025, with many more extensions after that. At the Lyceum, it became the first production in the building's 121-year history to pass one million dollars in ticket sales in a single week. As of October 2026, the Broadway production had given 939 regular performances after 14 previews.

Betty Gilpin was announced in December 2024 as the first replacement Mary, and Tituss Burgess followed with a short run in March 2025. Escola, Ricamora and Scully returned on April 8, 2025. Later Broadway Marys have included Burgess again in summer 2025, Jinkx Monsoon for two separate runs, Jane Krakowski, understudy Hannah Solow, John Cameron Mitchell, Maya Rudolph and Megan Stalter, who held the role from July 6 to September 12, 2026, just before Bowen Yang's run began.

Kumail Nanjiani has taken a turn as Mary's Husband, and Michael Urie, Cheyenne Jackson, Simu Liu and Barrett Foa have all appeared as Mary's Teacher.

In London, a West End production at the Trafalgar Theatre began previews on December 3, 2025, and opened on December 18, 2025, again directed by Pinkleton, with Mason Alexander Park as Mary and Giles Terera as Mary's Husband. Later London Marys have included Catherine Tate, Jinkx Monsoon and Lolly Adefope, as well as Escola, who made their own West End debut in the role in summer 2026. That London run with Escola is reported to have been filmed for a commercial release.

A North American tour opened on September 19, 2026, at The Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut, using the Broadway creative team with Pinkleton directing. As of October 2026, the route runs through May 2027, with stops including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Alaska is scheduled to play Mary on tour through January 17, 2027, and J. Harrison Ghee is set to take over from January 19, 2027, in Chicago. Ghee is also scheduled to play Mary's Husband from November 3, 2026, to January 17, 2027, so Ghee will become the first performer in the play's history to take on both Mary and her husband.