Video: Maya Rudolph is Fulfilling Lifelong Broadway Dreams in OH, MARY!

Long-awaited Broadway dreams are finally coming true for Maya Rudolph. The Emmy-winner and SNL veteran will soon make her Broadway debut in Cole Escola's Oh, Mary!, fulfilling a childhood wish for the performer.

"No joke, I have always wanted to be on Broadway since I was a little girl," she shared during a visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The host confirmed her Broadway ambitions by revealing a page from Rudolph's old yearbook in which the star had written that she would like to grow up to be an entertainer and "maybe act on Broadway."

"This is a show I truly feel is like no other... It's... goofy and weird and bitchy and ridiculous and campy and silly," Rudolph said of Oh, Mary! "For me to do Broadway and for this to be the first show I'm doing makes so much sense. This is kind of a part I was born to do. 

In the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, Rudolph follows several other top performers who have played the character, including Escola, Jinkx Monsoon, Tituss Burgess, John Cameron Mitchell, and Jane Krakowski, who offered advice for Rudolph on the heavy hoop skirt costume that Mary wears. 

"I started working out a lot and lifting very heavy weights. I just wear hoop skirts all the time at home now," she joked, before revealing that she has already tried on Mary's costume, which she admits is "cumbersome." Watch the full interview with Maya Rudolph now. 

Rudolph will join the company of Oh, Mary! as “Mary Todd Lincoln” on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 for a limited 8-week engagement through June 20, 2026. She will star alongside Philip James Brannon, Cheyenne Jackson, Bianca Leigh, and Tony Macht. 

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. 

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