Director Sam Pinkleton On the Art of Recasting Oh, Mary!

Anyone familiar with the unique brand of idiocy that made Cole Escola a cult YouTube and TV star was anything but shocked that their first stage play Oh, Mary! was hilarious. That it's also become a major commercial hit on Broadway—so much so that the production has extended several times at the Lyceum Theatre and had no less than two replacement stars while Escola was taking a hiatus—has been anything but expected.

But from the first moments of watching this wild play, one quickly learns it's best to expect the unexpected when it comes to Oh, Mary! Escola is currently back playing Mary Todd Lincoln. They originated the role last year but took a break this past winter. That three-month hiatus saw the role taken over by Glow star Betty Gilpin and then by The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss Burgess (along with some performances handled by understudy Hannah Solow).

According to director Sam Pinkleton, no one involved with the show initially thought it would run long enough to get replacements—an especially novel occurrence for a role that's become so closely associated with the person who wrote it, Escola. A longtime choreographer (including on Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), Oh, Mary! marks Pinkleton's first Broadway credit as a director

Playbill recently caught up with Pinkleton via Zoom (the Tony nominee is currently in London choreographing the U.K. premiere of Sondheim's final musical Here We Are at the National) to discuss what makes a Mary, the surprise success of the wacky play, the Tony Awards season ahead, and more. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Cole Escola, Betty Gilpin, and Tituss Burgess as Mary Todd Lincoln in *Oh, Mary!*

Off-Broadway, the show really felt like a downtown cult hit, and I think there was some worry from fans that something might get lost in the Broadway transfer. But that didn’t happen at all. If anything, the response to the show has only gotten bigger. Why do you think that is?

Sam Pinkleton: When we started talking about going to Broadway—which, to be clear, was never on the radar until three months into the downtown run [last year]—I was very nervous and hesitant. I was like, let’s not lose the magic of this. But I love that theatre so much. When I walked into the Lyceum for the first time, I was like, "Oh it’s perfect, because the theatre feels like the play." It’s so committed to being a theatre. It’s the theatre from The Muppet Show. And so, we took our cues from the Lyceum, and it did change a lot. The very visible way is that the cabaret [the show's finale] downtown was a completely different experience. I didn’t want to apologize for being on Broadway—let’s embrace the size of the room. And frankly, the Lyceum has a top balcony, and I wanted those people to have a nice time and feel embraced by the show. I want those people to feel like the show is playing to them. All of the people that I want to hang out with are in the top balcony.

I don’t know if it was about bigger for us, but it was definitely about doubling down on commitment. When we rehearsed it, we actually took it more seriously. We were like, "Let’s go deeper. Let’s get more serious. Let’s make the stakes higher." And when you do that, it makes it funnier. It wasn’t about fill the room. The show was always pretty big, but we took it deeper.

Why do you think this was the piece of Cole’s that popped off after being kind of underground?

I’m probably the wrong person to ask, because I’m too close to it. But I do think that it’s joyous to work on it. I think Cole wrote an amazing play—it’s just a brilliantly written and structured play, and everybody who worked on it brought their A game. It was the rare theatre experience of everybody just locking in to make this thing. It was fun to rehearse—we laughed a lot in the rehearsal room. I really believe that what the process feels like is often what it’s going to feel like for an audience. And this was just effortlessly joyful. Somebody recently described the show as a relief, and I thought that was such a high compliment. When I go and stand in the back of the Lyceum and watch the last half of the show, I just feel 900 people laughing. It feels like a relief.

I walk into that theatre and I’m like, anybody in this room who’s having a good time right now deserves that. It’s nice at the end of a rotten day to just laugh. And that’s what it felt to make it, too.

Speaking of those 900 people, I have been continually amazed at the variety of people I have seen that show around, to where sometimes I wonder if they’re going to like the show. And they always do.

Frequently I’ll walk in and be like, "Oh these people had tickets to The Lion King and accidentally ended up at Oh, Mary!" The entire orchestra will be families from Ohio. And then they’re howling at vomit jokes. I don’t know. We’re simple creatures. And I love a wide variety of theatre. I’m about to go watch a hard-hitting drama about abortion—I can’t wait. But sitting in a room with strangers laughing is ancient, and Cole has taken really good care of everybody there. They have delivered a play that has such confidence, and I hope we’ve delivered a production that has such confidence and is a nice thing to be in the room with.

That confidence has been really apparent as we’ve gotten some new stars. Starring the playwright, plays like this can feel like that’s the only way it can be. But Betty Gilpin and Tituss Burgess have proved that’s just not the case.

It’s been wild. Again, Cole wrote a great play, an incredibly high-stakes play with a character at the center of it who has an incredible need—and that’s any great drama, right? It’s a great part. There was a moment early in rehearsal downtown when Cole and I looked at each other and were like, "Do you think somebody else could do this?" And the thing that I actually thought about was how my mother-in-law is really active in community theatre in Indiana. I would love for my mother-in-law to do this play at her community theatre in Indiana. I think about that before I think about famous actors doing it.

And so, when it became clear that we were running on Broadway for much, much longer than we expected, and we would be casting another Mary, we, with our wonderful casting director Henry Russell Bergstein, were like, "Oh, well it’s a great part for a great actress, period. So let’s get a great actress." We sort of said Betty’s name in unison.

Something about her performance made me want to hang out with her. And I promise I’m not usually that kind of theatre fan.

Yes, that’s correct. And everything you’re feeling is true. She just came in with this… like, Cole’s not capable of marking. Me too. We’re both pretty intense creatures. And that is how Betty is. She came in completely prepared with her sleeves rolled up, ready to go and with a real point-of-view on the part. Rehearsing her, it was so fun to learn with her what it was. I already knew that it worked in other hands, because I had seen Hannah do it. And she is one of the great, undersung geniuses of the American theatre. But Hannah kind of had to work within Cole’s footprint. Betty came in doing something totally new, and it only made me love the play more. With Betty and now with Tituss, there have been dimensions unlocked. It sometimes makes me wonder if it fits into the world of the play, but that’s why I’m not an actor. It’s exactly the play. It’s just another way to look at it.

Tell me more about those unlocked dimensions.

For Betty, I think I learned about Mary’s heartbreak. I learned how much she wanted something, but how scared of it she was, how scared she was to be bad, how scared she was to fail. Betty went through the whole thing with incredible need.

Tituss is quite rambunctious. He just comes in and is having so much fun. Mary’s wild as a character, and she does treat people horribly. But she’s also quite lovable. I find Tituss to be very hard to hate. So Tituss has made this completely lovable, rambunctious pest and it was so fun to watch him and Phillip [James Brannon] bicker, because they just have a completely different relationship than Cole and Conrad [Ricamora] did.

I have tremendous respect for anybody who’s done it, because it’s wild. But I do think the play can take it, that the production can take it. I’m really excited for, whether it’s on Broadway or in Sarasota or whatever, to find dimensions that we haven’t found yet. There’s a lot of people who will do it in a way that we’ve never seen before.

I’ve seen it with all the Marys and several various understudies, and it always works. It speaks to how you’re doing it, because you’re letting everyone be the way that they are going to be good in it.

Part of the specialness of what the show is, and certainly how it was made with Cole as Mary, is that Cole is an original—period. Trying to do Cole is not available to anyone. There is only one Cole, and that’s true for the whole original cast. Bianca Leigh is an original. She’s wild. No one can do what she does. And so we have to be really specific about the essence of all of these characters and the truth of the play, and the guardrails of the production. It’s like, who’s Betty? Who’s Tituss? Who’s Hannah? They’ve all been bringing their whole selves to the part. They’re nothing like Cole, but they are so much like Cole in that they’re just weirdo geniuses who have access to this toolbox that this play lets them use all of. I mean, Betty was doing, like, full Greek tragedy.

Putting celebrity aside, what makes a good Mary to you as you’re casting?

I think Mary is the actress who is always the best thing in it. The type that you’re like, what’s going on with that person? It’s the actress who deserves more, and Mary deserves more, right? This play was made by people who love actresses—and actresses can be any gender, just to be very clear, but I am going to use the word actress. It’s the people who deserve more, who can’t be put into any one category. It’s funny people who are rooted in the truth, and also the absolute tragedy of being alive. We take it really seriously. I don’t think that Mary works if she isn’t as connected to the grounded reality of the character as she is to the absolute lunatic clownery.

That person is an Academy Award-winning actor. That person is also the girl you went to high school with who had four lines in Into the Woods, was, like, Jack’s Mother, and walked away with the whole show. Like, give Jack’s Mother Mary. Jack’s Mother deserves the last bow.

How do you navigate taking everything so seriously with the fact that it’s also a very stupid comedy?

I mean, we can’t not be stupid gay people, you know? I am who I am. I’m unfortunately never going to be giving you, like, prestige Tom Stoppard dramas at the Vivian Beaumont. It’s a very serious play with very high stakes, made by me and Cole and our dumb designer friends. Oh, Mary! is a play that loves being theatre. It’s really good at being a play. And it’s a play made by people who unapologetically love theatre and have a really good attitude about theatre. I know that’s not popular, but I do. I really do. Cole and I both grew up listening to cast albums and being miscast. And I think everybody who worked on it brought that to it, that thing of like, when you’re in high school in Spoon River Anthology with old age makeup on and you’re like, ‘I’m amazing in this. This is amazing. This set is amazing.’ And then you look back on it, and it’s so fucking stupid. But also amazing. We made it with that warmth, which is ridiculous. What we do is ridiculous. It’s so absurd that we put on giant skirts. But it’s an act of love. It can’t not be idiotic because we’re idiots.

When you think about this play going to other theatres and being directed by other people, what would be your best advice on the essence of Oh, Mary!?

You have to love her so much. Love Mary, and don’t judge them. It’s a world of people who do really awful, extreme things to get what they want. Don’t judge them. Love them. Theatre people are very good at making things that should be fun serious, which so confuses me. If I wanted to do that, I would go work in politics. If it feels fun, good! Make it fun. Have a good time making it. If you have a good time making it, congrats. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask how you’re feeling about the prospect of Tony Awards as we creep ever closer to May.

You know, it’s so crazy becauseI think this is my ninth Broadway show. But I’ve only really done the Tony Awards thing once, when I choreographed Great Comet. And I had so much fun making that Tony performance. Obviously, we’re not going to make a Tony performance because we don’t know what we’re getting nominated for and we’re not a musical. But my only memory of the Tony Awards was making that performance, and it was really joyous.

I love running into everyone. I have no idea what will happen with our show. But again, I have a toxically positive attitude about theatre, and I really love that thing that happens every May, whether you’re nominated or not, whether your show is nominated or not, where it just suddenly feels like everyone is on 46th Street, and everyone is running into Kate Baldwin all the time. Like, no matter what, I will find myself at Junior’s with Kate Baldwin and Baayork Lee. It’s so stupid. It’s heavenly. I can get excited about any opportunity there is for us to be reminded that we are a community of idiots and clowns, people who feel things. Award stuff aside, if the Tonys are an opportunity for a little while to affirm that our village believes in being stupid and feeling things, I’m in. I love that.

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