Get Ready to Say Goodbye to Oh, Mary!'s Original Cast

Broadway is getting ready to bid a tearful goodbye to much of the remaining original cast of Cole Escola's unlikeliest of wacky smash-hits Oh, Mary! August 2. That performance will be the final bow for original cast members Conrad Ricamora as Mary's Husband, Bianca Leigh as Mary's Chaperone, and James Scully as Mary's Teacher (along with current star Tituss Burgess as Mary).

The work—which made its world premiere in 2024 at Off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel before opening at Broadway's Lyceum July 11, 2024—is Escola's lovingly demented take on famous First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Escola has been clear that they did no research while writing the campy comedy, which imagines Lincoln as a madcap, cabaret-obsessed alcoholic. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.

Oh, Mary! has been one of those rare moments when downtown fringe-type theatre—typically beloved by few, even if oh, so passionately—has become a true mainstream hit. Once best known for equally insane YouTube videos that gained viewership through word-of-mouth, Escola now has a project that has made them a household name, both as an artist and a delightful guest of many late-night shows and podcasts. Their singular, genre-defining play is the true definition of a surprise hit. It's not only been keeping audiences in stitches for its entire run, it's been setting box office records—and earning Tony Awards. Both Escola, for their leading performance as Mary (currently being played by Burgess), and director Sam Pinkleton ended this year's Tonys night with statuettes in hand. Escola's was a historic win for a non-binary performer, too.

And while much attention might be deservedly going to Escola and the other actors who had taken on the title role (an esteemed list that also includes Burgess and Betty Gilpin), that supporting cast has been along for the entire ride, delivering their own career-making, truly hysterical performances. Offstage, they've been living through the heady experience of being in The talked-about hit of the Main Stem and all that begets, from post-show celebrity photo ops to signing autographs at the stage door and going to splashy award shows.

As this fabulous cast gets ready to give a bittersweet goodbye to Oh, Mary! after more than a year and a half, Playbill caught up with Leigh and Scully (plus fellow original cast member Tony Macht, who's set to continue in his role as Mary's Husband's Assistant until September 28) to talk about their wild run and what's next.

Bianca Leigh

If you've been a fan of the downtown theatre scene, you probably knew about Bianca Leigh, who plays Mary's ice cream loving chaperone, Louise, in Oh, Mary! Her most prominent prior credit had been in the 2005 film Transamerica, but most of her career was spent doing her solo show Busted, and starring in works from artists like Taylor Mac, Laverne Cox, and Bianca Del Rio. And Oh, Mary! isn't her Broadway debut—Leigh was an understudy in 2018's The Nap—but the play is Leigh's first time stepping into the spotlight full time on the Main Stem. She's also a true pioneer, with a long career as a trans actor that dates back to long before that concept was anywhere near the fore. Read her reflections below.

Did you know Cole before Oh, Mary!?
Bianca Leigh: I had never met Cole! That seems impossible, because we have a lot of mutual friends. We’ve run in a lot of the same circles, performed in a lot of the same places. I had heard about Cole, who was the wunderkind of Joe’s Pub at that point. I was asked to do a reading of this in 2023, and was like, wow I finally get to meet this genius. And it was fabulous. I knew something was very special right away. I think it was about a year later that we started working on the Off-Broadway run. I had assumed it was [director] Sam Pinkleton or Henry Russell Bergsein, the casting director, both of whom I’d worked with before, that got me there. And I was telling someone about it in the dressing room at the Lortel, and Cole said, “No, it was me! I saw you in Transamerica when I was 18, and I’ve had you in the back of my mind ever since.” And I said, “That’s wonderful, but what took you so long?!”

What does it feel like to suddenly be in this huge, mainstream, Broadway hit?
It’s been wonderful and life-changing and exhilarating and exhausting. And deeply rewarding. When I came to New York and started transitioning in 1984, the film, television, and Broadway world was shut to trans people. For almost 30 years! I was very lucky that I was able to thrive in that thin layer of downtown theatre. It didn’t pay a lot, but there was some money, and I got to work with wonderful people—like Taylor Mac. The money was not great, the acclaim was not always great, the job security was not always great, but we could do whatever we wanted. There wasn’t that pressure to fill seats, to have stars.

When things started to change, it was great. I got Transamerica, and then something on Law and Order, and suddenly I was doing a lot of regional theatre, and I understudied The Nap at MTC. It’s great. But this, Broadway—it’s theatre. People who just use the word “Broadway” and never uses the word “theatre,” I don’t understand that. It becomes a kind of culty, fetish thing. There’s all sorts of theatre—Broadway, downtown, regional. Some of the best stuff going on is regional, because they don’t have that pressure.

You’re playing this woman, in this role that really has nothing to do with being trans, beyond the show’s queer energy. How does that sit on you?
I think it’s wonderful! Casting trans actors in trans roles, that’s a whole thing. We could do a whole interview about that. What I like to do is play characters. If the piece is really quality, and there’s a trans character and it’s really done well and the dialogue is fresh and there’s other things going on in their life, that’s great. If it’s another character that is non-trans specific, that’s also terrific. No one wants to get stuck in this loop of “tragic tranny.” The life can be very hard and very painful, but it can also be joyous and affirming and validating and wonderful. You become part of the world as the person you are. So you want to show that trans people can live lives that are happy, joyous, and free.

And you also want to play doctors, this, that, and everything. I played a therapist on Law and Order: SVU, of a trans kid that had been murdered. I loved that they were open to it, because the therapist didn’t have to be trans. So if the audience knows, that’s great. If they think I’m just an actor playing a therapist, great. That’s why I like to use the term “non-trans specific.” Louise, obviously, is a cis woman. She’s married and she’s had children and such.

People ask if I was surprised that this happened. The surprise is getting the role. There’s so many actors out there, and there’s so many reasons for people not to cast someone, or be afraid to cast someone. When you get the gig, anything can happen. You could get nominated for an award. The show could bomb. The show could be a huge hit. Anything could happen. So getting the job, that’s the surprise for me.

Was its Broadway success surprising though?
You know, I remember they kept asking on opening night, “How are they gonna react?” And I kept saying, “Mae West wrote a show in 1927 called Sex.” 1927! There has been adult humor on Broadway this whole time—Oh! Calcutta!, Hair, you know. Things have changed, and this generation has grown up with trans kids in the classroom. People are just not as shocked anymore. People are flying in from all over the country—from red, red, red, red, red areas, just to see the show. And people are enjoying transgressive humor, adult humor, gender expansion, gender transgression, drag in the privacy of their own home now, too. That has a lot to do with it.

What informed your take on Louise?
I decided that Louise would have probably gone to finishing school, so I put a lot of mid-Atlantic accent into her. She says “ice cream” instead of “ice cream,” and “hummingbird.” Part of that is just because I think it’s fun and it just feels right. I’m fascinated by that mid-Atlantic thing in old movies. That’s what I wanted to be, a movie star—but back then.

And what’s next?
First, I have to go on vacation. I don’t know where yet, but I want to go to the Caribbean. I need a break, some time off—I’ve never missed a show. I also want to get back to my roots, so I’m doing a show at Joe’s Pub October 17. That’ll be time to throw some things around, get back into my writing, my singing, the craziness of queer theatre.

James Scully

James Scully stars as Mary's Teacher who's secretly...well, no spoilers. Scully is one of the play's original cast members who was already somewhat known when Oh, Mary! came along. He'd already starred as J.D. in Paramount's 2018 serial remake of Heathers, along with major performances in You and the 2022 film Fire Island. But Oh, Mary! gave Scully a whole new dimension, including—as we discussed in our chat—possibly his most visibly emotional performance yet.

How does it feel to be looking at your final performance?
James Scully: Really, really good. This job, more than maybe any other job I’ve had, I feel really at peace leaving it behind. We’ve been doing it so much longer than we could have expected. Not to generalize, but five-person plays just do not usually run for this long. It’s a novel thing that’s happened because of Cole, because Cole is a singular entity. And I think I sort of put my boot stamp on it. I’m really excited for other people to do it. I’m excited to come back and see the show and feel completely separate from it.

Other than [standby] Hannah [Solow], Tituss is your first new non-Cole Mary! What has that been like?
Honestly, at first, it was very disorienting, because I had only done it with Hannah twice in my whole run of the show. Especially towards the end, Cole and I, the gravitational pull got tighter and tighter. At some point I remember feeling like, I think I’m in love with Cole.

Okay, well, that doesn’t shock me because you get super into it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do the bar scene without real tears streaming down your face. I love it because it’s so stupid, but it’s clearly so real for you.
When we moved to Broadway, Sam [Pinkleton] was like, “We’re not doing 80 minutes of sketch comedy. We’re doing a Great American Play.” I think especially coming back after that two-month break, having had that time away, something sort of clicked. I was like, oh yeah. It’s like Looney Toons meets Gone With the Wind, so you need those streaks of Gone With the Wing in there. And, frankly, it’s not hard to make it real. That moment you’re talking about, Conrad [Ricamora's character] says that I’m not a good actor and not really very cute. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that, but it’s crossed my mind once or twice. It’s real because it’s like… business hurtful.

Which celebs in the audience have made you starstruck?
Oh, God, I could send you a 10-page document, and I’d still leave people out. So, downtown, I didn’t want to know who was there beforehand. And one day they emailed us and told us we have special guests in the audience, so stay in costume after the show and we’ll take pictures. And we got to the theatre, and all of us wanted to know who it is! And they were like “well we’re not telling you because you don’t want to know.” And I’m like, "But now I’m here in conversation with you, telling you I would like to know." But they didn’t tell us.

And it was Sally Field, Steven Spielberg, and Tony Kushner. And so going forward from that, I was like, “I would like to know!” So sometimes, I’ll find out before, and sometimes I’ll find out after the show as I’m walking up stairs. The one that really stands out in my mind is Jane Krakowski. When I rounded the corner and saw her, she bowed to me. She was just so gracious and warm, and exactly, because of her personal experience in the theatre, exactly the way you want to be treated when you walk off stage after a performance. Robert Downey, Jr., absolute sweetheart. You never know when you meet someone that titanically famous, how the interaction will go. And he was just so outgoing, went out of his way to be kind.

And once this is all done, what’s next?
I’m actually going to go directly to a hospital and have myself put into a two-week, medically induced coma.

Can you… actually do that?
Yeah! I mean, I’m not working with that kind of budget. But actually I’m doing my friend Jacob Wasson’s play SMUTA, which we did in Bushwick like a year before Oh, Mary!. I’m excited to be working on something that I’m equally passionate about. That’s the real fear, right? I don’t particularly want to go from doing Oh, Mary! to doing something soulless and incredibly lucrative. Cole has set an impossibly high bar for artistic fulfillment.

But it’s also forever part of your legacy. When people open up their Oh, Mary! script, you’re in the front from being in the original cast.
When they brought the scripts to the theatre, I realized that hadn’t even occurred to me. It’s fucking crazy that some kid in their drama class in Boise is going to check it out of the theatre library and see my name. Surreal. It’s almost impossible to wrap your head around.

Tony Macht

And then there's Tony Macht, equally notable for his comedic genius, his excellent piano playing, and for being, as he says, "the straight one" of the Oh, Mary! company. Don't worry—he's an ally. And beginning in August, he'll get to share the stage with new Mary, Jinkx Monsoon—the fifth Mary that Macht has accompanied at the keys so far in the play's ending "Madcap Medley." They will be joined by a new supporting cast: Michael Urie, Kumail Nanjiani, and Jenn Harris.

Now, you’d known Cole for a while, since At Home With Amy Sedaris?
Tony Macht: We actually didn’t know each other! I knew who Cole was, and I was a big fan. But I don’t think they figured out I’d even been on that show until after I’d done the audition side at least once. I was like, “Yeah, I was the teenager in that one episode.” They’re like, “Oh my God, you’re so much older.” I was like “Thanks!” I remember going home and being like, okay Cole kind of insulted my today. And that would end up being the main part of our relationship. With love, of course.

When this started, did you ever believe you’d be doing this on Broadway?
Of course not. I was shocked that I got the gig, and I was shocked that we extended Off-Broadway. I remember the meeting where they told us we were transferring, and it was just surreal and amazing.

I got a little nervous when Broadway was announced, because I wasn’t sure how it would do with Broadway audiences. And I’ve never seen it without everyone just laughing their ass off.
Yeah. I rarely get nervous when I act, but I remember being very nervous the first performance on Broadway, wondering how this was going to be received. And then it started, and it was so clear right away that it was going well.

I remember marveling that it got bigger somehow, like the hilarity of it.
That’s all to Cole’s credit in the writing. Everybody can relate to Mary. This is annoying to say as the straight person in the cast, but it actually has less to do with queerness than it might seem on the surface. Everyone has that Mary inside of them, that wants to be seen and perform. I’m equally surprised that it had this reception, but it also makes so much sense that, like, my Aunt Carol could see it and be like “That’s me.”

Speaking of which, what is it like being the straight person in Oh, Mary?
It’s exhausting. No I mean, I feel like I’ve learned a lot. I’ve been in the theatre for a long time, so I’m pretty used to the dynamic. And I love being a part of it.

Was it always part of the plan you would be playing piano at the end?
Yeah. That was part of the audition. Whenever I see that in an audition, I’m like, "Okay I actually have a chance at this part, because it shrinks the pool of applicants."

How has it been figuring out that sequence with the new Marys?
Well, I complain about it all the time, because every time a new Mary comes, there’s a new key, so I have to re-learn and re-memorize it. But it’s been great. The medley is in some ways the most "up to interpretation" of any part of the show. Betty’s medley to Cole’s to Hannah’s to Titus’s, they’re all vastly different.

Cole’s changed a lot from their first run to their second, too.
Totally. I’m still partial to Cole. I just loved finding all those bits and jokes with Cole. And they’d find stuff three months into the Broadway run, new jokes and stuff like that. They’re just such a good actor, sincerely.

How long does it take you to figure out the new rhythms when you get a new Mary?
It can take a little while, to be honest! We have rehearsals, but I think until you get into the repetition, as they would say in sports, it can be a little touch and go. But sometimes that’s the most fun, because everyone’s listening twice as hard. We get a little lazy when we get comfortable. It’s a very interesting thing.

Let’s talk backstage celebrities. Who were you most starstruck to meet?
We had Meryl Streep and Martin Short come, like, on a date together, basically. That was pretty big. Rita Moreno just came, and she was exactly how you wanted her to be. Just immediately launched into theatre stories. Theatre royalty, right there.

And, of course, you are staying with the show a little longer. Tell me what has let you keep doing this so long?
I mean the short answer is I love having a job. The other part is…I just love this show. I have been here so long, and I feel, weirdly, like a steward of this story, and I feel some responsibility to make sure it stays on track and to be part of the rails that whoever is playing Mary can thrash against. That is such a joy. And everyone’s really nice. That makes a huge difference when you come to work and you like everyone. And hopefully it’ll continue, unless Jinkx is a monster.

When I’ve been with Jinkx, my impression is that she is hysterical. And she loves her weed.
Great. She’s going to fit right in.