Latest news with #SamPinkleton
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
Tony Winner Sam Pinkleton Never Thought
The riotously funny Oh, Mary! —a show that imagines Mary Todd Lincoln as an alcoholic and aspiring cabaret singer—won big at the Tony Awards on June 8, nabbing a best actor trophy for nonbinary comedian Cole Escola as Mary and a best director award for Sam Pinkleton. A veteran choreographer, Pinkleton was previously nominated for choreography in 2016 for Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, but Oh, Mary! is his first Broadway directing credit. The scrappy show started with a sold-out off-Broadway run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the West Village before transferring to the Lyceum Theatre last summer and has since broken box-office records. The wildly inventive, madcap show has been a critical and commercial smash, with talent including Tituss Burgess and Betty Gilpin donning the curly wig and black dress to play Lincoln. Star Escola is back in another limited run on Broadway, which has been extended through September. Despite Oh, Mary! 's massive success, Pinkleton says he and Escola had no inkling the production could become as big as it has.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Cole Escola Wins the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play
Cole Escola won the Tony for best actor in a play for their performance in the outlandish, ahistoric comedy 'Oh, Mary!' This is Escola's Broadway debut, and first Tony. Escola, who is nonbinary, plays a self-indulgent, scheming Mary Todd Lincoln, who aspires to become a chanteuse. As a result, her boredom — which includes pining to perform her 'madcap medleys' of yesteryear — drives her to all kinds of antics. (With Cole prancing around in a hoop skirt, hilarity ensues.) The New York Times chief theater critic, Jesse Green, called 'Oh, Mary!,' which Escola also wrote, 'one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years.' Directed by Sam Pinkleton, the show opened at the Lyceum Theater last summer after a sold-out and twice-extended Off Broadway run. The play has also been extended multiple times since it transferred to Broadway. (It was the first show in the Lyceum's 121-year history to gross more than $1 million in a single week.) Escola, known for their roles in Hulu's 'Difficult People,' TBS's 'Search Party' and sketches on YouTube, came up through New York's cabaret and alt comedy scenes. The premise for 'Oh, Mary!' began with an idea, which Escola sat on for more than 12 years: 'What if Abraham Lincoln's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary Todd?' The Tony Awards, like the Oscars, use gendered categories for performers, and Escola agreed to be considered eligible for an award as an actor. Escola isn't the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award. In 2023, J. Harrison Ghee became the first out nonbinary performer to win a Tony for best leading actor in a musical, for 'Some Like It Hot,' and Alex Newell became the first out nonbinary performer to win for best featured actor in a musical for 'Shucked.'
