Cole Escola Leaving Hit Broadway Show ‘Oh, Mary!’
Mary Todd Lincoln fans, hold on to your hoop skirts. Cole Escola, the creator and star of the hit Broadway play Oh, Mary! is officially taking their leave. Glow and Emmy Award-nominated actor Betty Gilpin will be taking over the role of Mary Todd in an eight-week limited engagement starting Jan. 21, 2025, the production team announced Tuesday.
“I could not be more excited to see what Betty Gilpin does with the role of Mary,” Escola said in a statement. “She’s a brilliant comedic actress who understands the heart of this character and knows the serious business of being a fool. I promise, you won’t want to miss Betty as Mary.”
Written by Escola and directed by Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! follows a drunken, belligerent, and hilariously miserable (not to mention wildly historically inaccurate) version of Mary Todd Lincoln. While her husband deals with the presidency and unrelenting desires, Mary has two driving goals: alcohol and becoming a cabaret star. Now playing at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater, Oh, Mary! first opened at the off-broadway Lucille Lortel Theater on Feb. 8, where it sold out continually until transferring to Broadway in July. The show has been heralded as a smash hit, breaking its box office record 10 times and becoming the first show at the Lyceum to make over 1 million in a single week, according to Deadline. In November, Oh, Mary! also became the first Broadway show of the 2024-2025 season to announce the recoupment of its entire production cost.
“One of my favorite things in writing is tent poles,” Escola told Rolling Stone in February. “It’s why Christmas comes up so much in my work, because everybody knows what Christmas is and all the expectations that are attached, but then I can fill in a bunch of the blanks. It’s basically Mad Libs. So I felt that way with Mary Todd Lincoln. She’s not a big personality. It’s not like she’s some diva who we hear all these stories about. So it’s funny to me to be like, ‘Oh, what if she was an idiot?’ Like, ‘Abraham Lincoln’s wife was blank,’ and I get to fill in the space.”
Prior to the Broadway hit, Escola was best known for their work on comedies like Difficult People, At Home With Amy Sedaris, and Search Party. Escola’s last day on stage has yet to be announced.
“I have worshiped at the altar of Cole for years, but seeing their billion-layered brilliance in Oh, Mary! was a new plane of demented genius I didn’t know was scientifically possible,” Gilpin said in a statement. “I am beyond honored to step in so that Cole can get back to tending their neglected passions: fracking and skincare. Diving in with the perfect Sam Pinkleton to play Mary will be one of the single greatest joys of my life, and I will say that to my two daughters’ faces.”