Michael Urie to Join Cole Escola in West End Run of ‘Oh, Mary!’

Michael Urie is set to join Cole Escola in the London run of Oh, Mary! — and some performances will be filmed.

For a limited run from July 20 to Aug. 1, the Ugly Betty star, hot off his Emmy nomination for Shrinking, will reprise his Broadway role as Mary’s teacher.

Playwright Escola steps into the titular role for the first time on the West End. Giles Terera will return as Mary’s husband, while Bianca Leigh and Tony Macht will star as Mary’s chaperone and Mary’s husband’s assistant, respectively. The filmed performances will be directed by Sam Pinkleton, who worked with Escola on the original Broadway production before replicating that success in the British capital.

It comes as the wildly popular show, an Olivier and Tony-winning production, continues its celebrated run at the Trafalgar Theatre.

Additional casting up until September includes RuPaul’s Drag Race star Jinkx Monsoon as Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as Scott Karim as Mary’s husband, Dino Fetscher as Mary’s teacher, Kate O’Donnell as Mary’s chaperone, and Oliver Stockley as Mary’s husband’s assistant. Full casting beyond that will be announced in due course.

This is Urie’s first time on the London stage since 2015’s Buyer & Cellar, a one-man comedy that played at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in the 80-minute one-act play, which won Escola a Tony Award.

Outgoing star Mason Alexander Park caught up with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year about being London’s first Mary Todd Lincoln: “If you play her the way I play her, it’s a bit like having a panic attack for 80 minutes.”

“What I was most nervous about was the reception of the actual play itself,” said Park about bringing Oh, Mary! to the Trafalgar Theatre. “Because it’s an import, and because famously [with] any sort of transfer, there’s always this snooty journalistic desire to bring something down a few pegs when it comes from America or vice versa. … I wanted the play, as a piece of writing, to succeed. I want this for Cole, I want this for Sam and for everyone that was involved in that original production. I want it to have the life here that it deserves.” Their job is done, it seems.