Maya Rudolph Dreamed of Making Her Broadway Debut When She Was a Little Girl — and Has the Receipts to Prove It Dave QuinnTue, April 14, 2026 at 8:42 PM UTC 0 Key Takeaways Maya Rudolph is set to make her Broadway debut in Oh, Mary! starting April 28 for an eightweek run The comedy reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln's life and has become a recordbreaking hit since its 2024 Broadway opening Rudolph shared her childhood dream of performing on Broadway and praised the show's creator Cole Escola Years before landing her first Broadway role, Maya Rudolph had already put it in writing.
Maya Rudolph Dreamed of Making Her Broadway Debut When She Was a Little Girl — and Has the Receipts to Prove It
Dave QuinnTue, April 14, 2026 at 8:42 PM UTC
0
Key Takeaways
Maya Rudolph is set to make her Broadway debut in Oh, Mary! starting April 28 for an eight-week run
The comedy reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln's life and has become a record-breaking hit since its 2024 Broadway opening
Rudolph shared her childhood dream of performing on Broadway and praised the show's creator Cole Escola
Years before landing her first Broadway role, Maya Rudolph had already put it in writing.
During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, April 13, the actress shared a glimpse of her sixth-grade yearbook, where she had already mapped out her future with surprising precision.
“I would like to be an entertainer, and maybe act on Broadway. I would like three children (two girls and one boy) and live in a mansion in the vicinity of New York, where all the stars live!” her younger self wrote.
“How sweet is that? Isn't that so sweet?” Rudolph said, laughing at the photo from the book host Stephen Colbert shared. “I was 11 or 12, my youngest daughter's age. It's really so sweet. And so anal and specific! 'Two girls and one boy.' I was one kid off — I have three girls and one boy.”
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Maya Rudolph's sixth grade yearbookCredit: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube
Now, decades later, that childhood goal is coming true as Rudolph prepares to make her Broadway debut in Oh, Mary!, the hit comedy that reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln's days in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
“It's a dark comedy,” Rudolph explained of the show. “Honestly, this is a show I really feel is truly like no other. It's really, truly its own thing and it's goofy and weird and bitchy and ridiculous and campy and silly. You can do everything in it.”
“And it's funny, I really feel like for me to do Broadway and for this to be the first show I'm doing makes so much sense,” she added. “This is kind of a part I was born to do.”
Maya Rudolph and Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show' on Monday, April 13, 20226Credit: Scott Kowalchyk/CBS
Rudolph, 53, will step into the role of Mary Todd Lincoln beginning Tuesday, April 28, for a limited eight-week engagement through June 20.
The six-time Emmy Award winner and Saturday Night Live alum noted in a statement that she's long admired the show's creator and original star, Cole Escola, who also wrote the play and first brought the bratty, bouffant-topped First Lady to the stage.
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“Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of being Cole Escola,” Rudolph said in a statement announcing her casting. “Oh, Mary! is the funniest play I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of plays, you'd be surprised. It's such an honor to play the role of Mary, especially after so many iconic Marys have come before me.”
“So making my Broadway debut in the role of a lifetime — as a miserable, suffocated, alcoholic woman — is a real dream come true.”
Maya Rudolph in 'Oh, Mary!'
While speaking to Colbert, Rudolph gave a shoutout to the string of notable performers that came before her, including Jane Krakowski, Tituss Burgess, Betty Gilpin, Hannah Solow and two-time RuPaul's Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch creator John Cameron Mitchell is currently starring in the role through April 26.
“I'm following in some major footsteps. I've asked a lot of people for advice,” she told Colbert, recalling guidance from Krakowski. “She said, ‘Well, the hoop skirt's 15 lbs.' So I started working out a lot and lifting a lot of weights. I just wear hoop skirts at home all the time.”
Jane Krakowski and Maya Rudolph pose backstage at the hit play 'Oh, Mary!' on Broadway at The Lyceum Theatre on Oct. 23, 2025 in New York CityCredit: Bruce Glikas/WireImage
After trying one on, Rudolph admitted, “Cumbersome. She's cumbersome!”
“It really feels like something you want to play tennis in. Like, it's really uncomfortable,” she added. “But the minute you put it on, it has a life. It moves and it jumps and it makes you want to bounce around.”
Directed by Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! opened on Broadway on July 11, 2024 at the Lyceum Theatre, where it quickly became a breakout hit. The production made history as the first show in the venue's 121-year history to gross more than $1 million in a single week and has since broken its own box office record multiple times.
The comedy has extended its Broadway run through Jan. 3, 2027, with a West End engagement currently underway and a North American tour set to launch in Hartford, Conn., in September.
Tickets for Oh, Mary! are on sale now.
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Published: April 15, 2026 at 12:09AM on Source: MORNING MAG
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