Six-time Emmy nominee Tituss Burgess will don Mary Todd Lincoln's bratty wig for a limited engagement in Broadway's Oh, Mary! beginning March 18, and he says this is "kind of a once in a lifetime kind of role."
Written by and originally starring Escola, Oh, Mary! centers on famous First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In Escola's demented take (or as press notes put it, "through the lens of an idiot"), Mary Todd becomes a madcap, cabaret-obsessed alcoholic. And Burgess was hand-picked by Escola themselves to play the role—in a 2024 appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast, Escola said Burgess would be their dream replacement, "in a way that almost would make [them say] 'Wait...maybe you're too good.'"
Burgess is no stranger to the stage, with Broadway credits including Moulin Rouge!, Guys and Dolls, The Little Mermaid, and more. Oh, Mary! will be his first play on the Main Stem. "It's very rare that you get a part that is so fully formed, and [Escola] did such a brilliant job of crafting it, and crafting it so that it can exist outside of themselves," Burgess says. "I've seen this show twice now, I went back to see if I could see the role outside of Cole, in all their supernova-ness. And I was like, 'Oh, this is a very good play.'"
Though Oh, Mary! has certainly developed a reputation as a camp comedy (in the most favorable sense of the word, as Escola discussed with Playbill in a 2024 interview), Burgess is leaning into the work's more serious facets with his take.
"I know that the show has camp aspects...but I really think it is much more of a drama than it is a comedy," he says. "I really do. I mean, the stakes are so impossibly high. And for a Black male to be playing a part where they're consistently told 'no' at every turn, for me, that is what I pull from, and that is what I put on full display...It's actually quite heartbreaking, the role, and what she is up against. And so, I bring all of my heartbreak and all of the ways that I've tried to make life funny just to keep from crying."
When Burgess steps into the role of Mary Todd, he will be starring opposite Phillip James Brannon as Mary's Husband, marking the first time in the production's run (and in pop culture history) that both Lincolns will be played by Black actors.
"[The significance] doesn't go lost on either of us. We had a conversation about it," Burgess says. "But nothing at all has to change about the text or the setting for it to hit home in a way that is both painful and illuminating to what we're up against still in this country. And while I don't want to spend a great deal of time drawing focus to what is not right about the country, what is right about it is that we can speak out about it, and we can live out loud on stage. And you get to come and draw your own conclusions about what needs to change about America and freedom of speech."
Burgess will lead the company of Oh, Mary! for three weeks, with a final performance set for April 6. Though the engagement may be short, Burgess says he is going to make it count.
"I'm going to do right by this play," he emphasizes. "And Cole will be proud. If and when they win all those Tonys, they want me to come back, I will."
