Oh, Mary! Tickets, Cast & Broadway Guide
Find Oh, Mary! tickets, the $47 lottery, $43 rush, current Broadway cast, best Lyceum Theatre seats, runtime and what the hit comedy is about before you book.
Oh, Mary! tickets remain in strong demand for Cole Escola’s Tony-winning Broadway comedy at the Lyceum Theatre. This guide covers official Broadway tickets, the $47 digital lottery and $43 same-day rush, the current Oh, Mary! cast, runtime, age guidance, and the practical questions to answer before you book.
Oh, Mary! is not a normal Broadway comedy. It is 80 minutes of controlled chaos built around a historically deranged version of Mary Todd Lincoln — a miserable, alcoholic, wannabe cabaret star trapped in a marriage she cannot stand and a life that has gone catastrophically sideways. It is dark, it is camp, it is aggressively silly, and it has become one of the most talked-about Broadway shows in recent memory. The New York Times called it “one of the best comedies in years.” The Pulitzer Prize committee named it a finalist for Drama. It broke the Lyceum Theatre’s all-time weekly box office record.
None of that fully prepares you for what it actually is. This guide will.
Below, you’ll also find the current cast, a concise best-seats-for-Oh,-Mary! overview, what the show is about, what kind of comedy it is, and who is most likely to love it.
What Is Oh, Mary! About?
The setup is this: it is 1865, Abraham Lincoln is about to be shot, and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln is having a terrible time. She drinks too much, in the play’s deliberately fictional version of history, she is suffocated by her marriage to a deeply closeted president, she yearns desperately to return to her former life as a cabaret performer, and nobody around her is taking any of this seriously. The play — written by Cole Escola, who also originated the lead role — unfolds in the final weeks before the assassination with a complete and enthusiastic disregard for historical accuracy.
That last part is not incidental. Oh, Mary! is not a period drama that happens to be funny. It is a comedy that wears a period drama like a costume. The historical setting is a vehicle for absurdity, not a subject of reverence. Mary Todd Lincoln here is not the tragic, misunderstood figure of sympathetic biography. She is a spectacular disaster — furious, yearning, drunk, magnificently wronged, and absolutely certain that her destiny involves a spotlight.
Escola’s Mary is not a villain or a victim. She is something more theatrically interesting: a woman of enormous self-regard whose circumstances have conspired to deny her the performance career she believes she was born for. The comedy comes from the gap between her grandiose self-image and the catastrophic reality of being Mrs. Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. Everything else — the assassination, the historical figures around her, the period detail — exists to widen that gap as far as it will go.
Oh, Mary! is currently running in three separate productions: this Broadway production at the Lyceum Theatre in New York, an Olivier Award-winning West End production in London, and a North American tour that began in Hartford, Connecticut on September 19, 2026. This page covers the New York Broadway production specifically. If “Oh, Mary!” is playing at a venue in another city, confirm the venue name on your ticket to make sure you’re booking the right production.
The play also has genuine emotional intelligence underneath the absurdism. Escola is not mocking Mary Todd Lincoln — they are liberating her, giving her a comic ferocity and a point of view that history mostly denied her. That quality, more than any single joke, is why the show has resonated with the audiences it finds.
What Kind of Funny Oh, Mary! Actually Is
This is the question most Broadway pages about Oh, Mary! fail to answer usefully. “Hilarious” tells you nothing. What matters for planning purposes is whether the kind of funny it is matches what you want from a Broadway night.
Oh, Mary! is camp comedy — which means it is self-aware, theatrical, highly stylized, and built on a sustained commitment to a ridiculous premise executed with total conviction. It does not wink at the audience or apologize for its own absurdity. It goes fully into the bit and holds it until it becomes something closer to a state of mind. The humor is dark, frequently uncomfortable, occasionally shocking, and structured so that laughter builds on itself in a way that can get genuinely physical. Time Out New York gave it five stars and described it as “dizzyingly, breathtakingly funny, the kind of funny that ambushes your body into uncontained laughter.” That is an accurate description of what happens in the room when the show is working.
Camp comedy is not the same as broad comedy. It does not rely on loud punchlines, pratfalls, or situations that are funny because they are embarrassing. It relies on performance, commitment, and the comedy of sustained absurdity — a performer so thoroughly inhabiting a preposterous premise that the audience cannot look away. Oh, Mary! requires an audience that is willing to meet it on those terms. The people who love this show tend to love it with an intensity that is hard to explain to people who have not seen it. The people who bounce off it usually expected something more conventional.
The show is also genuinely dark. The alcoholism, the unhappy marriage, the political corruption lurking at the edges, the gunshot at the end — none of this is played for warmth. Oh, Mary! does not soften its edges for commercial palatability. That is part of why it feels so alive. It is also why the 14+ age guidance is real, not precautionary: this is adult comedy, not in a raunchy sense but in the sense that it assumes an audience capable of sitting with discomfort and finding it funny.
How the short format serves the show
At 80 minutes with no intermission, Oh, Mary! delivers its comedy as a single concentrated charge. There is no second act to slow-build toward, no intermission to break the spell, no narrative sprawl that requires patience. The show arrives at full velocity and does not let up. That format is a significant part of why it works — camp comedy is hard to sustain across two and a half hours, and Escola has the structural intelligence to know exactly how long the joke should run.
Current Oh, Mary! Broadway Cast & the Rotating Mary
The current Broadway cast is especially important for Oh, Mary! because the lead role has become a rotating star vehicle. As of September 2026, Bowen Yang is playing Mary Todd Lincoln at the Lyceum Theatre through December 6, with the rest of the principal Broadway company currently including Phillip James Brannon, Barrett Foa, Bianca Leigh, and Tony Macht.
Five-time Emmy nominee, Saturday Night Live cast member, Las Culturistas co-host, and Broadway debut.
Current Broadway principal cast member opposite Bowen Yang.
Broadway veteran whose credits include Avenue Q, Spelling Bee, and Mamma Mia!.
Original Off-Broadway and Broadway company member.
Current Broadway company member and original Off-Broadway cast member.
Created the play, originated Mary Todd Lincoln, and won the Tony Award for the performance.
The role of Mary has previously been played on Broadway by performers including Cole Escola, Betty Gilpin, Tituss Burgess, Jinkx Monsoon, Jane Krakowski, John Cameron Mitchell, Maya Rudolph, and Meg Stalter. Each engagement changes the comic energy of the role without changing the production around it.
This is not standard long-run cast replacement. The show has been deliberately programmed around high-profile limited engagements, and the effect is that each new Mary becomes a cultural event in itself. The production is the same. The comedy is the same. What changes is the specific performance energy of whoever is inhabiting the role — and because each Mary brings their own persona and performance history, the show reads slightly differently depending on who you see.
The practical planning implication is simple: if a specific performer is the reason you want to see the show, book for that engagement specifically. If you are primarily interested in the show itself, any engagement delivers the same writing, direction, and production. Bowen Yang’s current limited engagement runs through December 6, 2026, while the Broadway production itself is currently scheduled through July 10, 2027. Verify the official cast calendar before booking for a specific performer.
Who Should Choose Oh, Mary!
Oh, Mary! is genuinely not for everyone — and being honest about that is more useful than overselling it as a universal crowd-pleaser. It is one of the funniest shows currently on Broadway for the right audience. For the wrong audience it can be a confusing 80 minutes.
Comedy fans who like their humor dark, stylized, and committed. If you love camp, cabaret, or comedic performance that treats absurdity as a serious art form, this show was made for you.
Repeat Broadway visitors looking for something that does not resemble anything else currently running. There is genuinely nothing like Oh, Mary! on Broadway right now, or in recent memory.
Fans of the specific performer currently in the lead role. The show has built a loyal following around each Mary engagement, and the cult around each incarnation is worth experiencing if you follow any of these performers.
Visitors who want a complete, punchy Broadway night on a compressed schedule. At 80 minutes with no intermission, it is the easiest show on Broadway to build a full evening around. Dinner before, drinks after — done by 10 PM even with an 8 PM curtain.
First-time Broadway visitors who want a classic large-scale theater experience. Oh, Mary! is not the representative Broadway night. It is a brilliant outlier. If your goal is to understand what Broadway is, start somewhere with more conventional scale and come back to this.
Visitors who prefer broad, warm, crowd-pleasing comedy — the kind where everyone in the room is laughing at the same thing at the same time for the same reason. Oh, Mary! is specific, strange, and does not meet the audience halfway. Some visitors find that exhilarating. Others find it alienating.
Is it a good first Broadway show?
For adventurous first-timers — especially those who already know they like dark or absurdist comedy — it can be a remarkable introduction to what Broadway can do at its most original. For visitors expecting a more traditional theater experience, the show may feel like a left turn without a map. If you are a first-timer trying to decide between Oh, Mary! and a more obviously “Broadway” production, the honest answer is that the safer bet is something with clearer scale and conventional narrative. If you want the safe bet, it is not this show. If you want the memorable one, it might be.
Oh, Mary! vs. Other Broadway Comedy Options
Broadway comedy exists on a wide spectrum from safe and crowd-pleasing to genuinely strange. Understanding where Oh, Mary! sits on that spectrum helps with the decision.
The Play That Goes Wrong is broad, physical, family-friendly farce — comedy that works through escalating theatrical disasters and pratfalls. Nearly any audience will laugh at it. Oh, Mary! is more specific, darker, and more dependent on the audience’s willingness to meet the material on its own terms. Both are genuinely funny. The Play That Goes Wrong is the safer bet for mixed groups or anyone uncertain about their comedy preferences. Oh, Mary! rewards a more targeted audience that already knows what kind of funny it likes.
Operation Mincemeat is a British musical comedy about a genuinely bizarre World War II deception operation — sharp, sung-through, clever, and more conventionally accessible than Oh, Mary! while still being distinctly not mainstream. Both attract audiences who want something smarter than standard Broadway fare. Operation Mincemeat has more narrative structure and broader appeal. Oh, Mary! is funnier in concentrated bursts and stranger throughout. If you want a full musical experience with comedy, Operation Mincemeat. If you want pure comic performance at its most unhinged, Oh, Mary!.
SIX and & Juliet are pop-concert Broadway — loud, celebratory, built to generate immediate enthusiasm from a wide audience. The energy is up from minute one and never comes down. Oh, Mary! is a different kind of high: drier, more specific, building its comedy through sustained absurdity rather than pop songs and spectacle. For a group that wants maximum fun and maximum accessibility, SIX or & Juliet win clearly. For comedy fans who want something with more teeth and more strangeness, Oh, Mary! is the better room to be in.
Both Maybe Happy Ending and Hadestown are emotionally serious, musically precise, and built around genuine feeling. Oh, Mary! is the tonal opposite — it treats feeling as something to be deflected and redirected into performance. These are not competing choices so much as different needs: if you want to leave the theater moved, go to Maybe Happy Ending. If you want to leave having laughed in a way that felt specific and alive, go to Oh, Mary!. Some Broadway visitors want both on the same trip, and these two satisfy completely different parts of that.
Best Seats for Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre
The Lyceum Theatre is an intimate Broadway house with Orchestra, Mezzanine, and Balcony levels, so Oh, Mary! does not require a premium seat to work. The comedy depends heavily on facial expressions, timing, and physical performance, though, so closer and more centered seats have a real advantage.
Center Orchestra gives you the clearest view of the performers’ facial reactions and the small physical details that drive much of the comedy.
Front Mezzanine center keeps you close while giving a clean view of the entire stage and is often a strong balance of perspective and price.
Rear Orchestra or mid-Mezzanine can work very well in a 922-seat theater, especially if premium center seats are priced aggressively.
Balcony and extreme side seats are farther from the facial comedy and may be more angled. Check the exact seat location before buying if proximity matters to you.
One important access note: the Orchestra is step-free from the sidewalk, while the Mezzanine is up two flights of stairs and the Balcony is up four. The Lyceum has no elevator or escalator to the upper levels.
For row-by-row sightline guidance, section comparisons, view-from-seat planning, and the full seat map, use the Lyceum Theatre seating guide. For box office, venue history, accessibility, and general theater planning, see the Lyceum Theatre guide.
Oh, Mary! Tickets: Lottery, Rush & Where to Buy
Oh, Mary! tickets for the Broadway production are sold officially through Telecharge and directly at the Lyceum Theatre box office at 149 West 45th Street. The Broadway production is currently scheduled through July 10, 2027, although individual lead-cast engagements can create sharp demand spikes.
Use the official show site’s ticket link or buy directly at the Lyceum Theatre box office. Current box office hours are Monday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–8:30 PM, and Sunday noon–6:30 PM.
Entries open at 12:00 AM one day before the performance. Winners are drawn at 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Availability is limited, so treat the lottery as a discount opportunity rather than a guaranteed ticket plan.
A limited number of $43 general-rush tickets are sold in person at the Lyceum Theatre box office on the day of the performance, subject to availability.
Where to Buy Oh, Mary! Broadway Tickets
Telecharge
The official Broadway production site currently routes standard online ticket buyers to Telecharge. Start there when comparing dates, sections, and current availability.
Lyceum Theatre box office
Official tickets are also sold directly at the theater at 149 West 45th Street. The box office is also where the $43 same-day rush is handled.
TKTS and same-day options
If your performance date and seat location are flexible, TKTS can be worth checking. For a specific cast engagement or a date you cannot move, advance tickets are the safer strategy.
Group tickets
Official group bookings are available for groups of 10 or more, subject to performance availability. If you’re planning a school, company, or larger social outing, use the production’s official group-sales channel rather than trying to assemble a large party from scattered individual seats.
The production uses water-based haze and one gunshot sound effect. The official recommendation is ages 14 and up. This is an adult comedy, so the age guidance is worth taking seriously when planning for younger or more sensitive viewers.
What to Know Before You Go
80 minutes, no intermission — plan the evening accordingly
An 8 PM curtain ends by approximately 9:20 PM, which makes Oh, Mary! one of the easiest Broadway shows to combine with a full dinner on either end. The short runtime is genuinely one of the show’s logistical advantages for visitors whose time in New York is limited. The pre-show dining guide and restaurants near Broadway guide cover options well-placed for the Lyceum’s West 45th Street location.
The Lyceum is Broadway’s oldest continuously operating theater
Built in 1903, the Lyceum at 149 West 45th Street is a Broadway landmark — declared a New York City architectural landmark, with the original producer Daniel Frohman’s apartment above the stage still used as the Shubert Archive. The building has considerable character. Arriving with a few minutes to spare before the show is worth it for the room alone, quite apart from the production it currently houses.
Getting there
The Lyceum Theatre is at 149 West 45th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue. Convenient subway options include the 1/2/3/7/N/Q/R/W/S trains at Times Square–42nd Street, the B/D/F/M trains at 47–50 Streets–Rockefeller Center, and the N/R/W at 49th Street. For drivers, the parking near Broadway guide covers nearby garage options. The Theater District neighborhood guide covers the full picture of this part of Midtown.
The gunshot is real — and sudden
The production includes a gunshot sound effect, noted in official content advisories. If you or anyone in your group is sensitive to sudden loud sounds, this is worth knowing in advance. It is brief and in context, but it is not telegraphed with a warning during the performance itself.
Accessibility and stairs
There are no steps from the sidewalk into the theater, and Orchestra seating is accessible without steps. The Mezzanine is on the second level up two flights of stairs, the Balcony is on the third level up four flights, and there is no elevator or escalator. The theater also has a wheelchair-accessible restroom and assistive-listening/captioning services. For the full venue breakdown, use the Lyceum Theatre guide.
Verify the current cast before booking
With limited engagements cycling through the lead role, the performer you see depends on when you go. Current and upcoming cast information is on the official show site. If a specific Mary is the reason you want to go, book for their engagement — don’t assume the person you read about is still in the role when you book.
Frequently Asked Questions
80 minutes, with no intermission. An 8 PM performance ends by approximately 9:20 PM. There is no break — the show runs straight through at full speed.
A darkly comic, historically unfaithful take on Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. In Cole Escola’s deliberately fictional version, Mary is a frustrated, alcoholic would-be cabaret star trapped in an unhappy marriage with a president the play depicts as deeply closeted. The play is absurdist comedy that uses a period setting as a vehicle for chaos rather than as a subject of historical interest.
The official age guidance is 14+. Children under 4 are not permitted. The production contains adult language, adult situations, a gunshot sound effect, and theatrical haze and smoke. This is not a family show in any conventional sense. Take the age guidance seriously — the show is written for and aimed at an adult audience.
Bowen Yang is currently playing Mary Todd Lincoln on Broadway from September 15 through December 6, 2026. The current principal company also includes Phillip James Brannon, Barrett Foa, Bianca Leigh, and Tony Macht. Lead casting rotates in limited engagements, so verify the official cast page before booking for a specific performer.
Yes. Bowen Yang is currently playing Mary Todd Lincoln at the Lyceum Theatre from September 15 through December 6, 2026. He is making his Broadway debut in the role. Verify the official cast calendar before booking if seeing Yang specifically is important to you.
Two Tony Awards at the 2025 ceremony: Best Direction of a Play (Sam Pinkleton) and Best Leading Actor in a Play (Cole Escola — the first non-binary winner in that category). The play was also named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
It depends entirely on what you and your date find funny. If you both like dark, camp, or absurdist comedy, it is an excellent date night — specific, memorable, and unlike anything else on Broadway. If your date prefers warmer or more sentimental shows, it may not be the most romantic 80 minutes. For a date night that leans romantic, Maybe Happy Ending or Hadestown will serve you better. For a date night that leans irreverent and strange, Oh, Mary! is hard to beat.
The show itself — the writing, direction, and production — is consistent across all cast configurations. What changes is the energy and persona of whoever is playing Mary. Each lead brings their own performance history and comic sensibility to a role that accommodates a wide range of interpretations. If you are a fan of a specific performer, book for their engagement. If you primarily want the show, any engagement delivers it.
Yes. The Broadway production currently offers a $47 digital lottery, with entries opening at midnight one day before the performance and winners drawn at 10 AM and 3 PM. A limited number of $43 same-day rush tickets are also sold in person at the Lyceum Theatre box office, subject to availability.
Center Orchestra is the most immersive choice for facial expressions and physical comedy, while front Mezzanine center offers a strong overall view. Because the Lyceum Theatre is relatively intimate, rear Orchestra and mid-Mezzanine can also be good value. Check Balcony and extreme side locations carefully if closeness matters to you.
The official Broadway site currently routes online ticket sales through Telecharge, and official tickets are also sold directly at the Lyceum Theatre box office at 149 West 45th Street. If you use a resale marketplace, compare the final price and confirm the venue is the Lyceum Theatre in New York.
Not necessarily. Oh, Mary! is running in three separate productions right now: this Broadway production at the Lyceum Theatre in New York, an Olivier Award-winning West End production in London, and a North American tour that began in Hartford, Connecticut on September 19, 2026. If “Oh, Mary!” is playing at a venue in your city, check whether it’s the touring production — the venue name on your ticket will confirm which one you’re booking.
It is set around real historical figures and real events — Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, and the assassination at Ford’s Theatre in April 1865. Everything else is invention. The play is not a historical drama and makes no claims to accuracy. Cole Escola has described writing it “through the lens of an idiot,” which is probably the most accurate characterization of the show’s relationship to history.
The Verdict on Oh, Mary!
Oh, Mary! is one of Broadway’s sharpest and strangest current hits — a show that found its audience not through scale or spectacle but through a comic voice so specific and a performance tradition so committed that it has sustained a Broadway run well past what anyone initially predicted. For the right visitor, it is the funniest thing currently playing in New York. For the wrong one, it is 80 minutes of very confident weirdness that may or may not land.
The right visitor tends to know who they are. If the description above sounds like your kind of Broadway night, it almost certainly is. The first-time visitor guide covers how Oh, Mary! fits into the wider landscape of what to see on your first Broadway trip.