Tony nominee Conrad Ricamora is President Abraham Lincoln in the celebrated farce Oh, Mary! Ricamora stars opposite playwright and performer Cole Escola — who has reimagined Mary Todd Lincoln as a cabaret performer teetering on the edge. Spectrum News NY1 entertainment journalist Frank DiLella recently caught up with Ricamora to discuss his first Tony nod, how he found his way to the stage in college, and what it’s like putting his own stamp on our 16th president.
Congratulations on the Tony nomination! I keep saying this, but Oh, Mary! is the little show that could — and is doing. You’re in one of the most talked-about shows currently playing on Broadway!
I never thought that this would be as big of a hit as it’s become. I thought maybe it would be a Downtown hit. But the fact that we’re in Times Square next to The Lion King and Wicked and all those types of shows — it never occurred to me it would be embraced in such a mainstream way. There’s something really affirming about it — not only just the queerness of it, but the integrity of the storytelling.
And audiences are flocking to your show.
And they continue to die with laughter every night. They’ve been raucous every single night. I feel like our show is providing a catharsis of laughter for everyone.
You play Abraham Lincoln, but he’s not the Abraham Lincoln I remember reading about in history books.
I’ve followed Cole’s comedy for over a decade. There was a moment in rehearsal when something clicked for me, and it was when I watched Gone With the Wind. I had never watched it before. Something about the constraints of the male and female roles in that movie really spoke to me. A lot of times as men — the men in mainstream media, like Batman — he’s puffed up with a gravelly voice. So, in my head I had to think about what is lost and what is repressed when men feel like they have to walk around like that. And that’s what I feel with Abe in Oh, Mary! What’s lost when he feels like he must be hyper in-control and aggressive. He can’t show his vulnerability and his sexuality is repressed. It all comes unraveled so beautifully in the show.
I remember reading you went to college on a tennis scholarship, and it was in college where you discovered theater.
Yes. I was on a tennis scholarship. I took an acting class to fill out my electives and fell in love. They assigned me a monologue without even knowing my past about my family; they assigned me a monologue about a kid with an estranged relationship with one of his parents. And I read it without having any acting experience, and felt like I didn’t have to act because I could speak these words with authority. It was a piece from Lanford Wilson’s Lemon Sky. And I felt this electricity that I’ve been chasing ever since.
You’re sharing the stage with Cole, who is a comedic genius. How do you not break?
The great thing about working opposite someone like Cole, who is so good at what they do, it makes you dig deeper in what you’re doing to counter that. No, I don’t feel that tickle of breaking anymore. When we first started Off-Broadway Downtown, it was hard the first two weeks. And then I was like, “You’ve got to revisit what’s at stake for you here.” That’s the genius of the setting — the Civil War — the stakes are so high. I have to get Mary under control, and that takes precedence over everything.
What’s been your favorite celebrity encounter at Oh, Mary!
Any time anyone from SNL comes, because I’m such an SNL fan. Back when we first opened on Broadway, Laura Dern came, and afterward she said how funny it was, and she also said she was crying because of our commitment on stage. She said she was able to laugh at the show, but there are also meaningful and touching moments that hit her hard and made her cry. I’ll keep that in my pocket forever.
This is your first Tony nomination. Are you still riding high from the news?
A lot of people who come from broken families and broken homes who have that primal attachment trauma early on in life — which I do, and a lot of people do to some degree as well — you always feel like you’re searching for that acceptance and searching for that place to come home to for decades in your life. And this truly feels like a sense of acceptance for an art form and community that I have loved for so long. It’s personal in that way, from a psychological perspective. But to also be doing Tony Awards press with Francis Jue, who I held in my arms and bled out eight times a week in Soft Power, and Joy Woods, who I did Little Shop of Horrors with, and countless other designers and directors. It wasn’t just the nomination: It was looking around at the press junket and realizing I have relationships and friendships with half of the people nominated from my 13 years of working and living in New York City. That feels like the win to me, those relationships.
What’s your fondest memory of the Tony Awards?
Ten years ago, when we were nominated for The King and I and Ruthie Ann Miles was nominated and won. Ruthie’s and my first big break was with Here Lies Love at The Public. So, when she won, I was in tears, beside myself, because I remember her talking to me in the dressing rooms at The Public during our first run and we had never done interviews like this before, we had never done photo shoots, so that feeling of being overwhelmed and grateful. So, to see her up there winning a Tony was my favorite experience that I’ll probably ever have of the Tonys because we’re so close.
What have you learned from this experience of helping to create this hit Tony-nominated play?
It deepened my belief that writers and artists – if they have something they want and have to say, everyone else should get out of the way.