The Broadway staging of Oh, Mary! treats its title role like a living experiment: the script and blocking stay the same, but each new actor redefines Mary Todd Lincoln, testing theatrical identity against historical expectation.
John Cameron Mitchell — the writer and star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch — joined the Lyceum Theatre company in early February and remained onstage through April 26. His Mary is theatrical, often tipsy, a performer who seems to be as much rehearsing an identity as living it. Opposite him is Simu Liu as Mary’s Teacher, and the casting continues the show’s darkly comic, drag-inflected approach that pairs recognizable names with a willfully stylized sensibility.
A role built to change
Oh, Mary! was conceived for rotation. Cole Escola originated the part and won a Tony for it; since then the producers have handed the hoop skirt to a parade of well-known comics and actors — Jinkx Monsoon, Jane Krakowski, Betty Gilpin among them — each bringing a different comic tempo, vocal color and physical grammar to the part. Male supporting roles follow the same model: Conrad Ricamora, James Scully and Michael Urie have played Mary’s Husband or Teacher, as have Kumail Nanjiani, Cheyenne Jackson and John-Andrew Morrison. Swapping performers lets the creative team tweak tone and emphasis while keeping the show in cultural conversation.
That ongoing reinvention is the point. Every new Mary forces critics and audiences to rethink what the role means — and what the play wants to be.
How Mitchell approaches the part
Rotating casts aren’t just a novelty; they demand a particular balance of control and freedom. Incoming performers usually get a compact rehearsal window — roughly eight sessions — which nudges them toward refinement rather than wholesale reconstruction. Directors concentrate on gesture, rhythm and a single throughline, leaving spaces where an actor’s impulses can shape the performance. The result is a finished production that still feels alive night to night.
Mitchell’s Mary leans into a cultivated theatricality: quiet lessons in elocution, a borrow‑from‑silent‑film posture, an affinity for exaggerated physicality more than naturalistic psychological realism. He cites silent-era figures such as Theda Bara and Louise Brooks as tonal guides — shorthand for a certain stance, not a literal biography. His work owes something to earlier, more unrestrained takes (he praises Jinkx Monsoon for loosening later performers), and he describes the first performance as exhilaratingly uncontrollable — “like being shot out of a cannon,” he said.
From an Instagram DM to the Lyceum
Mitchell’s casting began the way many things do now: with social media. After posting about the show, he exchanged DMs with director Sam Pinkleton, a conversation that led to an invitation to join the cast and the rapid, intensive rehearsal process typical for rotating players. The format rewards actors who can absorb a shorthand quickly and make bold, immediate choices.
Lineage, improvisation and community
Mitchell situates Oh, Mary! within downtown drag-theater and queer-performance traditions that also helped incubate works like Hedwig. The show’s playful historical rewrites and heightened gender play draw directly from that underground lineage; its porous boundary between rehearsal and performance keeps improvisation and communal energy front and center. For this piece, community roots and improv chops matter as much as hitting scripted beats.
Who could be next?
Casting a role that blends precise comic timing with moments of improvisation is not a routine hire. Producers will likely look for performers comfortable in both queer cabaret/downtown worlds and mainstream musical-theater environments — people who can carry satire and also inhabit spontaneous beats. That usually means choosing between two types of candidates: downtown, improvisational performers and established stage actors with a track record in comic, physical or gender-bending work.
Mitchell, mindful of spirit over star wattage, has floated a wide-ranging wish list — from Maya Rudolph, Sarah Sherman, Cecily Strong and Laverne Cox to alternative-comedy names like Matt McGrath, Julio Torres, Patti Harrison, Kate McKinnon and Bill Hader. The variety of names reflects the production’s competing impulses: double down on drag-theater pedigree, or steer toward a broader Broadway profile.
John Cameron Mitchell — the writer and star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch — joined the Lyceum Theatre company in early February and remained onstage through April 26. His Mary is theatrical, often tipsy, a performer who seems to be as much rehearsing an identity as living it. Opposite him is Simu Liu as Mary’s Teacher, and the casting continues the show’s darkly comic, drag-inflected approach that pairs recognizable names with a willfully stylized sensibility.0