A Room Full of Marys, Bowen Yang Sets a Lyceum Record in Oh, Mary!
Six famous faces from the show's past came to West 45th Street to see Yang's Mary Todd Lincoln, in a week that grossed $1.59 million
Most nights at the Lyceum, there is one Mary Todd Lincoln in the building. This week there were several.
BroadwayWorld published photos on Friday of a reunion at Oh, Mary! on West 45th Street. John Cameron Mitchell, Cole Escola, Hannah Solow, Maya Rudolph, Betty Gilpin and Jane Krakowski came by to see Bowen Yang in the title role. BroadwayWorld counts all six among the show's former stars. Escola, of course, is also the one who wrote it.
The photographs are by Bruce Glikas. It is a rare thing, a role with enough alumni to fill a dressing room.
The Record
The visit came with a number attached. For the week ending Sunday, October 11, Oh, Mary! grossed $1,592,306, according to BroadwayWorld. That is an all-time high for the show and for the Lyceum itself.
Playbill counts this as the 16th time the comedy has set a new house record since it opened in 2024. BroadwayWorld tells the same story from the other end. Oh, Mary! was the first show in the theater's history to gross more than $1 million in a single week, and it has beaten its own record 15 times since.
It was a strong week for the whole street. Broadway's total box office rose by nearly 30 percent over the week before, Playbill reported, as autumn ticket prices arrived. The average ticket across Broadway was $142.02, and 248,496 people saw one of the 29 shows running.
Most nights at the Lyceum, there is one Mary Todd Lincoln in the building. This week there were several.
Yang's Mary
Yang is the host of the podcast Las Culturistas, as BroadwayWorld notes. He made his Broadway debut in the role on September 15. He was booked for a limited engagement, and he has since extended it through January 17, 2027.
The part is a gift for a comic with timing. Playbill's synopsis describes a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks before her husband's assassination, full of drink and frustrated dreams, as seen "through the lens of an idiot," the idiot being Escola.
Yang joined alongside Phillip James Brannon as Mary's Husband and Barrett Foa as Mary's Teacher, per BroadwayWorld. Bianca Leigh and Tony Macht, both from the original Broadway company, play Mary's Chaperone and Mary's Husband's Assistant.
For the start of his television story, see our piece on Shane Gillis hosting SNL, which recalls the September 2019 day when both men were announced as new Saturday Night Live cast members.
What to Know Before You Go
The Lyceum is at 149 West 45th Street. Oh, Mary! runs 80 minutes with no intermission, per Playbill. Tickets are on sale through July 10, 2027, BroadwayWorld says, though Yang's run ends in January.
The average ticket over the run so far is $158.80, according to Playbill's grosses figures as of October 11.
The record will likely fall again. On West 45th Street, Mary is used to it.
