From 1776 to Oh, Mary! to POTUS: Revisit the Shows That Feature America's First Lady

Last week, Broadway said hello to its newest play featuring an American first lady: Oh, Mary!, written by and starring Cole Escola, is an absurdist send-up of the marriage between Mary Todd Lincoln and her husband, Abraham. She wants to be a cabaret star, and he wants her to stop drinking.

The American theatre has a long tradition of dramatizing the political process (heck, besides Oh, Mary! there's three other shows running right now in New York City that's all about governance—Hamilton, Suffs, and N/A starring Holland Taylor and Ana Villafañe as Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez). And what job is more dramatic than being a President?

In some shows, it's being his wife, as dramatized in works like All the Way, where Betsy Aidem played Lady Bird Johnson; 1776, with a singing Martha Jefferson; and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which featured the First Ladies up to 1902. Some shows have a fictional first lady, like the farce POTUS.

Browse through the gallery below to see the many Broadway shows that have featured America's first ladies.

P.S. We also included Suffs. Though it follows the suffragists and doesn't feature a first lady, it is produced by former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who was the subject of a Broadway play called Hillary & Clinton, where she was played by Laurie Metcalf). We think it more than counts.