Broadway's Oh, Mary! Reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln — What’s Fact and What’s Farce?

Seite 1 / 2

News (1 / 1) 28.04.2026 11:56 / Frank

Broadway's raucous Oh, Mary! has spun Mary Todd Lincoln into a boozy, mercurial stage heroine — yet the playwright says it’s pure farce, not history. Read on to discover the full story!

A Broadway reinvention

Playwright Cole Escola built Oh, Mary! from a comic idea and admits little historical research, saying the seed came from a 2009 note. Their performance won a Tony and the role has since been played in a gender- and race-blind lineup including Betty Gilpin, Tituss Burgess, Jinkx Monsoon, Jane Krakowski, John Cameron Mitchell and Maya Rudolph. Escola, who is non-binary, frames the show as wild and freeing for performers and audiences alike.

The real Mary Todd Lincoln

Born Dec. 13, 1818 in Lexington, Ky., Mary was the fourth of seven children of Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth Parker Todd. Educated at Ward’s Academy and Madame Mentelle’s French School, she moved to Illinois at 21 and met Abraham Lincoln. They married Nov. 4, 1842; she was 23 and he was 33.