More stories

  • in

    Backstage With ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and 3 Other Broadway Shows

    Broadway stars make it look easy — hitting a high C, crying on demand, landing a complex turn with taps, doing all that as many as eight times a week. But behind the curtain, before a show, the groundwork is laid: the vocal cord steaming, the fight calls to ensure violent scenes can be staged safely, the visits and hugs and affirmations that put actors in the right frames of mind. We watched the preparations for four Tony-nominated shows — “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “John Proctor Is the Villain” and “Oh, Mary!” — as their performers got ready to go onstage.‘Buena Vista Social Club’Photographed by More

  • in

    Tituss Burgess in ‘Oh, Mary!’ Is Cole Escola’s Dream Come True

    As Burgess prepares to step in to the hit Broadway comedy, he thinks he should have “spent more time at the gym.”“Oh!” Tituss Burgess said, the curls of his Mary Todd Lincoln wig bobbing as he spoke. “I need kneepads.”Fully in costume, wearing the wig and a bell-shaped black dress, Burgess was about to rehearse Cole Escola’s hit comedy “Oh, Mary!” onstage at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, just days before stepping into the starring role on Tuesday.And, yes, he really did need those kneepads. When Escola played Mary Todd, they channeled their sprung-coil energy into a performance of relentless hilarity and chaos. Burgess’s take on the role is no less physical; if anything, he is upping the ante with the cartoonish expressions and belted high notes fans know from his earlier Broadway appearances and shows like “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”Burgess’s turn in the play, a demented fantasia of Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated and thwarted “rather well-known niche cabaret legend,” will run through April 6. After that, Escola will return to the part.When they do, it will be with a fantasy having come true. Last May, Escola was a guest on Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’s podcast “Las Culturistas,” and said that they “would love for someone else to play Mary Todd” before adding, “My dream is Tituss Burgess.”Yang and Rogers let out an exclamation just short of a gay gasp, and Rogers said, “That would be fab.” Escola joked that they were worried Burgess would be “too good,” but also couldn’t help but imagine him in the show’s famous curly wig.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Chappell Roan, Kai Cenat, Shannon Sharpe Are Among Our Breakout Stars of 2024

    Audacious, original and wielding a clear vision, the stars who rose to the top in 2024 pushed boundaries and took bold, even risky, choices. Here are 10 artists who shook up their scenes and resonated with fans this year.Pop MusicChappell RoanIt’s almost incomprehensible to think that last year, Chappell Roan still had time to work as a camp counselor.It’s not that she hadn’t been pursuing pop. Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” was released in 2023. One of its now-hit singles “Pink Pony Club” was released back in 2020.But it was this year that all the pieces coalesced: Her album hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart and No. 1 in album sales; her extravagant drag-inspired persona, 1980s-influenced pop sound, soaring vocals and edgy performances have become wildly viral; she outgrew her tour plans; and her dance-along anthem “Hot to Go!” was even featured in a Target ad and played at sporting events.All the while, her lyrics tackle queer issues frankly. Her track “Good Luck, Babe!” — about a relationship between two women that collapses because one is, as Roan has put it, “denying fate” — was one of the biggest hits of the summer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Review: What Makes ‘Oh, Mary!” One of the Best Summer Comedies in Years

    Cole Escola’s dragtastic White House farce asks the immortal question: Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?Like so many before them, members of the “Oh, Mary!” creative team are proudly reclaiming an insulting epithet as a badge of honor.I don’t mean “queer”; they’re way past that. I mean “stupid.”“Oh, Mary!” is “the stupidest play,” Cole Escola, its author and star, tells anyone who will listen.“I have a huge hunger for deep stupidity,” Sam Pinkleton, its director, chimes in.They protest too much. “Oh, Mary!” may be silly, campy, even pointless, but “stupid,” I think not. Rather, the play, which opened on Thursday at the Lyceum Theater, is one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years. Which is a surprise on many levels, and on each level a gift.To start with, we don’t get a lot of comedies these days, not the kind you can feel good laughing at. Most contemporary examples of the genre — say “Bootycandy” by Robert O’Hara and “Clybourne Park” by Bruce Norris — use the form the way doctors use an emetic: They want you to gag on the gags. But the totally unserious “Oh, Mary!” is not medicinal in that sense. It merely wants you to lose your breath guffawing, especially with a series of switchback shocks at the end, so cleverly conceived and executed they’re hilarious.But the premise is already a joke. How else would you describe a back story in which Mary Todd Lincoln (Escola in a hoop skirt the size of a yurt) longs to return to her first love, cabaret, with its “madcap medleys” and built-in excuses for diva behavior?Escola and James Scully in the play, which is on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater after debuting Off Broadway this past winter.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    ‘Oh, Mary!’ Star Cole Escola Is a Campy Actor With Serious Fashion

    Cole Escola, the actor and playwright, stood before a mirror at a pastel-colored studio in Manhattan’s garment district, holding a spray of white satin flowers in one hand.“The calla lilies are in bloom again,” Escola said, quoting a Katharine Hepburn line from the film “Stage Door.” The actor delivered it in Ms. Hepburn’s signature mid-Atlantic accent.It was the last day of June — the day of the New York City Pride March — and Escola was at the studio of Jackson Wiederhoeft, the designer of the brand Wiederhoeft, for a fitting before a red-carpet appearance: the Broadway premiere of “Oh, Mary!,” a comedic play written by and starring Escola, on Thursday.In the show, Escola plays a fictionalized version of the former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, portraying her as an alcoholic and an aspiring cabaret performer desperate to flee the White House and her husband. After it premiered Off Broadway in February, “Oh, Mary!” received a groundswell of raves from critics, generating buzz loud enough for it to twice extend its Off Broadway run before being brought to Broadway this summer.The play’s glowing reception has made Escola an overnight sensation, 17 years after taking up acting. Previously, the actor had been known for YouTube skits and supporting roles on TV shows like “Search Party” and “At Home With Amy Sedaris.”Escola’s newfound stardom has meant adjusting to certain trappings of fame, like being invited to late-night talk shows, awards shows and red-carpet events — and receiving the wardrobe scrutiny that comes with such public appearances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    ‘Oh, Mary!,’ a Surprise Downtown Hit, Will Play Broadway This Summer

    Cole Escola’s madcap comedy about the former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln will begin performances in June.“Oh, Mary!,” an outrageously madcap comedy that imagines the former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln as an oft-inebriated chanteuse-wannabe, will transfer to Broadway this summer after becoming a surprise hit downtown.The show, which is gleefully tasteless and also ahistorical, is the brainchild of Cole Escola, an alt-cabaret performer who built a cult following with a series of YouTube sketches and reached a wider audience with a role on Hulu’s “Difficult People.”The Broadway run is scheduled to begin previews June 26 and to open July 11 at the Lyceum Theater. It is scheduled to run until Sept. 15.“Oh, Mary!” began its life in January at the Lucille Lortel Theater in the West Village. That commercial Off Broadway run has been extended twice and is scheduled to end May 12. The run has been sold out, and has attracted a stream of celebrities, including Bowen Yang, Timothée Chalamet, Amy Schumer and Jessica Lange; one night Steven Spielberg, who directed the 2012 film “Lincoln,” showed up with Sally Field (who played Mary Todd Lincoln in the film) and Tony Kushner (who wrote the screenplay).“Oh, Mary!” was written by Escola and is directed by Sam Pinkleton. The Broadway run will feature the same cast as the Off Broadway run, including Escola as Mary Todd Lincoln and Conrad Ricamora as Abraham Lincoln; it is being produced by Kevin McCollum, Lucas McMahon, Mike Lavoie and Carlee Briglia. More

  • in

    Review: ‘Oh, Mary!’ Turns an Unhinged Bit Into Real Theater

    Cole Escola’s play, which imagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated cabaret singer, surprisingly pulls off stretching a stupid joke to its extremes.“For God’s sake, Mary!” Abraham Lincoln says to his wife in “Oh, Mary!,” Cole Escola’s unhinged historical fantasia that imagines its protagonist as an alcoholic cabaret singer married to a gay guy. “How would it look for the first lady of the United States to be flitting around a stage right now in the ruins of war!”“How would it look?!” she responds. “Sensational!”It’s a moment reminiscent of Escola’s early YouTube humor, like in the sketch “Bernadette Peters Does Her Taxes.” An accountant exasperatingly asks for a ballpark figure, and Escola’s Bernadette, wiggling like a charmed snake with their hands on their hips, asks, “Is this a ballpark figure?”So stupid. So campy. So unexpected. And yes, like Mrs. Lincoln, even sensational.There’s little else in New York theater right now quite as surprising as “Oh, Mary!” Written by and starring Escola, it’s a bit taken to an 80-minute extreme that’s silly, nasty, tasteless and, in the end, good theater — the kind of show that will leave you gagging, both in the sense that you’ll be losing your mind with joy, and that you might just be grossed out.Escola’s humor is tailored like a Bernadette Peters concert gown to New York gays who were brought up on a diet of alt-cabaret and “Strangers With Candy.” Mary Todd Lincoln would scowl comfortably alongside the Hollywood starlets of Charles Busch and the manic guests of “At Home With Amy Sedaris.”To this lineage Escola adds a sensibility that’s queer and crass; you often get the impression that their ideas start with a wig in search of a story, inspired by tropes from pop culture — mainly, vintage TV and commercials that begin with “I’m a mom.” Out come characters like Donna Germaine, the sweetly hapless real estate agent of “Pee Pee Manor,” and Fifi, the saloon singer of “Our Home Out West,” a parody of 1970s Christmas specials.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More