It was announced today that John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Secret Garden) will be the next actor to don the bratty curls of Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! on Broadway. The Tony Award-winning musical comedy will welcome Mitchell on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, where he will remain in the role for a 12 week engagement at the Lyceum Theatre through April 26, 2026.
“Cole Escola and Sam Pinkleton are the wild horses that dragged me back to drag and I couldn’t be happier!” said Mitchell. “As the most mature Mary yet, my days are filled with working the StairMaster, mainlining Ozempic, and mastering my Brilliant Dialogue. ‘Line?!’ Thank you, Cole, may I do you proud mangling your classic!”
“Welcoming John into this cast feels both delicious and somehow inevitable,” added Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton. “So many of us in the Oh, Mary! Universe, myself very much included, wouldn’t be where we are without John’s work, which reshaped what live performance could look and feel like for generations of tender weirdos. He’s a queer trailblazer, cultural icon, brilliant actor — and, most importantly for his new role, a giant idiot.”
The cast of Oh, Mary! on Broadway
Mitchell will be starring alongside Jenn Harris as Mary’s Chaperone, Tony Macht as Mary’s Husband’s Assistant, John-Andrew Morrison as Mary’s Husband, and Cheyenne Jackson as Mary’s Teacher.
About Oh, Mary! on Broadway
Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in this 80-minute one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln, through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola).
Directed by 2025 Tony Award winner Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! opened on Broadway on July 11, 2024 at the Lyceum Theatre, where it became the first show in the theater’s 121-year history to gross more than $1,000,000 in a single week. Oh, Mary! has since broken its own box office record twelve times, and became the first show of the 2024-25 Broadway season to recoup its investment.
Curious to know who else has played America’s favorite First Lady? Find out who John Cameron Mitchell will be joining in the role’s lineage in Every Actor Who has Played Mary Todd Lincoln.
