News

Cole Escola, creator of the Broadway hit comedy Oh, Mary!, will return to star in their show as Mary Todd Lincoln, and will bring the rest of the original cast – including Conrad Ricamora (‘Mary’s Husband’) and James Scully (‘Mary’s Teacher’) – along with them.

Producers announced today that beginning Tuesday, April 8, the full Oh, Mary! original cast will be back in the show at the Lyceum Theatre. Escola, Ricamora and Scully left the show at various times in recent months for what turns out to be temporary leaves. The show, once a regular sell-out week after week, has seen declines in attendance and ticket sales since Escola’s departure in January.

Oh, Mary! currently stars Betty Gilpin as Mary Todd Lincoln, with Tituss Burgess set to play the role of Mary Todd Lincoln from March 18 through April 6. Other cast members currently on board are Phillip James Brannon, Chris Renfro...

Cole Escola is returning to the lead role in Oh, Mary! on Broadway.

Escola, who originated the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in the play, will return to the role starting April 8. Conrad Ricamora, who plays Mary’s Husband, and James Scully, who plays Mary’s Teacher, will also return starting April 8.

Betty Gilpin is currently playing the role on Broadway after taking over from Escola on Jan. 21. Tituss Burgess is set to take over for three weeks starting March 18.

Written by Escola, Oh Mary! reimagines the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, depicting her as a wannabe cabaret star with a drinking problem who is discontented with her life in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The play, directed by Tony Award nominee Sam Pinkleton, opened on Broadway on July 11, 2024 at the Lyceum Theatre after a sold-out run Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theater.

In addition to Gilpin,...

Tituss Burgess will take over the lead role in Oh, Mary! this spring.

Burgess will play Mary Todd Lincoln for three weeks starting March 18 through April 6. He takes over the role from Betty Gilpin, who took over the role starting Jan. 21.

Cole Escola, who wrote the play, originated the role of Mary Off-Broadway and through the show’s Broadway transfer.

Burgess, known for his roles in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Schmigadoon!, has previously appeared on Broadway in Moulin Rouge!, Guys and Dolls, The Little Mermaid and more.

“Oh, Mary! blew me away when I saw it on Broadway. Cole Escola is a genius!” Burgess said. “The show is fresh and impossibly funny. I understand the role of Mary Todd Lincoln maybe a little too well. I’m over the moon with joy that I get to join the company at The Lyceum Theatre.”

Oh Mary! reimagines the life of Mary Todd Lincoln,...

Betty Gilpin just made her Broadway debut!

The Emmy Award-nominated actress took her first bow in the hit play Oh, Mary! on Tuesday night (January 21) at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City.

Betty took over the role of Mary Todd Lincoln from the show’s original star and writer Cole Escola, who departed the play this past weekend. She is joined in the cast by newcomers Phillip James Brannon as Mary’s Husband and Chris Renfro as Mary’s Teacher, as well as original stars Bianca Leigh as Mary’s Chaperone and Tony Macht as Mary’s Husband’s Assistant.

Oh, Mary! is the first show in the 121-year history of the Lyceum Theatre to ever gross more than $1 million in a single week and the show has since broken its own box office record eleven times.

Betty will star in the play for a limited 8-week engagement through...

The revival of Our Town, starring Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch and Katie Holmes, ended its limited run Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre with its highest gross yet.

The Thornton Wilder revival, directed by Kenny Leon, brought in $1.08 million last and played to 95 percent capacity, with an average ticket price of $134.51. The play opened on Broadway on Oct. 10.

Wicked remained the top grossing show in the industry for the week, bringing in $2.6 million, followed by Hamilton with $1.9 million and Gypsy with $1.89 million. The Great Gatsby brought in $1.85 million as lead Jeremy Jordan celebrated his last week in the show before joining the musical Floyd Collins this spring. The Lion King rounded up the top five with $1.7 million.

In Cole Escola’s last scheduled week in Oh,Mary!, the show brought in $1.25 million and played to 100 percent capacity at the Lyceum Theatre. Betty Gilpin takes over the lead role starting Tuesday,...

Broadway’s upcoming Macbeth, starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, has completed its cast, with Hadestown‘s Amber Gray, Billions‘ Asia Kate Dillon and Phillip James Brannon from M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant among those joining the production.

Directed by Tony Award winner Sam Gold, Macbeth begins performances at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre on Tuesday, March 29, with an official opening on Thursday, April 28.

Producers announced the complete cast today. Joining the previously announced Craig and Negga will be:

Phillip James Brannon (Servant) as Ross Grantham Coleman (The Great Society) as MacDuff Asia Kate Dillon (Billions) as Malcolm Maria Dizzia (In The Next Room) as Lady Macduff Amber Gray (Hadestown) as Banquo Emeka Guindo (Camelot) as Fleance Paul Lazar (Silence of the Lambs) as Duncan Bobbi MacKenzie (School of Rock) as Macduff’s Child Michael Patrick Thornton (The Red Line) as Lennox Danny Wolohan...

New York City is getting another shot in the arm this summer with Free Shakespeare in the Park’s happy Merry Wives, playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s embraceable adaptation of the Bard’s The Merry Wives of Windsor starring Watchmen‘s Jacob Ming-Trent as that great, rotund creation Falstaff.

Briefly delayed by injury and Covid, Merry Wives opens tonight as a most welcome – and, with vaccines required, as safe as can be – escape from the woes of the world. With an update to a contemporary South Harlem peopled with a splendid assemblage of West African immigrant characters, Merry Wives enhances the classic farce with up-to-the-minute references, the occasional brief snippet of R&b crooning, and a same-sex romance that seems completely at home in the setting.

If the intermission-less production, directed by Saheem Ali, doesn’t quite reach the joyous heights of Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub similarly updated Twelfth Night,...

Update, July 23 New York’s Public Theater has canceled tonight’s Free Shakespeare in the Park performance of Merry Wives, the third consecutive cancellation of the show after a member of the production tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week.

In a series of Tweets today, the Public wrote, “On Wednesday, we learned that a member of the Merry Wives production tested positive for Covid, and in accordance with our existing protocols in the case of a positive result, we cancelled our July 21 and 22 performances.To support the artistic and logistical efforts required to restart performances, we are cancelling our performance on Friday, July 23.”

Today’s announcement also noted that the theater company will “continue adhering to the rigorous testing and daily health and safety protocols needed to support a safe and joyful experience for all at Free Shakespeare in the Park.”

Information on future performances will be shared soon,...

The Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Merry Wives has postponed its opening night by nearly two weeks due to an onstage injury sustained by its leading man Jacob Ming-Trent.

Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy adaptation of Merry Wives of Windsor, currently in previews at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, was to have opened Tuesday, July 27, with press previews originally scheduled for this week. The Public Theater announced today that the official opening has been bumped to Monday, August 9.

Neither the nature nor the extent of the injury was disclosed. A Public Theater spokesperson told Deadline that the actor is recuperating and will return to the show when he is able. No additional details were released.

According to the theater, Ming-Trent, who plays Falstaff in the production, “unfortunately sustained an injury during a recent performance and to support his full recovery, we must postpone our upcoming press performances and official press opening.

New York’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production this summer of Merry Wives, a comedy adaptation by Jocelyn Bioh of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor, will feature an all-Black cast including Jacob Ming-Trent (HBO’s Watchmen), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Broadway’s To Kill A Mockingbird), Shola Adewusi (CBS’ Bob Hearts Abishola) and Susan Kelechi Watson (NBC’s This Is Us).

The Public Theater announced the complete casting today, along with new dates for the staging in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater: Performances will begin Tuesday, July 6 (instead of the previously announced July 5) and run through Saturday, September 18 (an extension of three weeks from the previously announced engagement). The official opening night is Tuesday, July 27.

The extension is designed to compensate for current social distancing procedures that will require limited audience capacity of 428 at the 1,800-seat Delacorte. The audience capacity could be expanded if state requirements for small- and medium-sized venues change before July.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the theater again without suffering through plays about straight couples caught up in parenting issues of interest to no one but themselves, along come liberated gay couples to rehash the old dilemmas in playwright Jordan Harrison’s “Log Cabin,” now playing at Off Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.

Do we want a baby? Yes? No? Boy? Girl? What shall we name it? Will it ruin our social life? Our sex life? Will we even be decent parents? Will the kid grow up to be as screwed up as we are? And if we do take the plunge, whose sperm should we use? Whose womb? “It’s the thing to ask gay people now,” someone observes about the protocol of bringing up the subject of baby, “after ‘Are you getting married?’”

As a committed couple, Ezra and Chris have stability going for them,...

Arts in the Armed Forces (Aitaf) will hold its 6th Annual Veterans Day event in honor of the United States Armed Forces on Monday night, Nov. 10, at Studio 54 in N.Y., with a reading of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street. Girls’ Adam Driver, Marine and Aitaf founder, and Listen Up Phillip’s Joanne Tucker, Aitaf artistic director, are hosting and producing the event. “From the moment I first read the play, I saw both the people I served with and the military community as a whole in its characters,” Driver wrote in an email. “It’s filled...