Anyone who has spent two years failing to get a ticket to Oh, Mary! is about to be handed the next best thing. The play is being professionally filmed, with playwright and original star Cole Escola back in the role of Mary Todd Lincoln.
Not an adaptation
This is the important distinction. Oh, Mary! is not being turned into a film in the conventional sense. The production will be captured live on stage, preserving the thing that made it work rather than translating it into another medium.
Cameras go in on July 28, part way through the West End run at the Trafalgar Theatre in London. Escola returned to the role there on July 20.
Who is in it
Several performers from the Broadway and London productions appear in the filmed version, including Bianca Leigh as Mary's chaperone, Tony Macht as the assistant to Mary's husband, Giles Terera as Mary's husband, and Michael Urie as her teacher. Sam Pinkleton, who directed both stage productions, directs this one too.
When you can watch it
That is the part nobody will answer yet. Producers have confirmed the July 28 performance is being filmed for future release, but no distributor and no date have been announced.
Why the show worked
Written by Escola, Oh, Mary! reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks before her husband's assassination through a gleefully unhistorical lens. It became one of Broadway's biggest breakout hits, won two Tony Awards, and transferred to the West End.
Escola told ELLE in 2024 that the character is personal in a way that has nothing to do with history. As soon as they get on stage as Mary, they said, they are having the time of their life. Mary is them, in the way that every character they write is them, including Abe.