Saint Paul, Minnesota (July 30, 2026) — Producers Kevin McCollum & Lucas McMahon and Mike Lavoie & Carlee Briglia, along with the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts announced today that RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars winner Alaska Thunderf*ck will star as “Mary Todd Lincoln” and Tony Award® winner J. Harrison Ghee will star opposite her as “Mary’s Husband” when Oh, Mary! makes its Minnesota premiere at the Ordway during a strictly limited engagement from January 6–17, 2027. Additional casting will be announced in the coming months.
Tickets for the show are available at Ordway.org or by contacting the Ordway Ticket Office at 651.224.4222. The Ticket Office opens at 10:00 AM.
“I’ve often been asked what my dream role would be. As an 8-foot-tall drag queen from outer space, I never really had an answer. Mama Rose? I’m too tall. Evita? I’m too short. Willy Loman? Wait… that might actually be amazing. But the point is, I never had a dream role. Until I saw Oh, Mary!. So, it is an actual dream come true that I, Alaska Thunderf*ck, get to play Mary F*cking Todd in the greatest play of the generation. This is an honor. This is unbelievable,” said Alaska. “I am infinitely grateful to the inspired genius known as Cole Escola for creating the best role in the best show ever to exist.”
“I have seen Oh, Mary! three times and relished the beauty of this show—how different people shine so brightly in these roles, and yet you see the influence of Cole all over the production. The opportunity to get a crack at Mary’s Husband is beyond a dream come true,” said J. Harrison Ghee. “We all possess so much within us. If we surrender to circumstances, we will find the possibility for expansion beyond belief. I’m so excited to play opposite Alaska; there are bound to be some brilliant moments, and we are going to set the road on fire with this electrifyingly hilarious play.”
Written by Tony and Olivier Award winner Cole Escola and directed by Tony Award winner Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! opened on Broadway on July 11, 2024, and continues to play at the Lyceum Theatre, where it became the first show in the theatre’s 121-year history to gross more than $1,000,000 in a single week. Oh, Mary! has since broken its own box office record thirteen times and became the first show of the 2024-25 Broadway season to recoup its investment. Oh, Mary! opened to rave reviews in London’s West End on December 18, 2025, and won the 2026 Olivier Award for Best New Entertainment or Comedy Play.
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 this one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola).
The full creative team includes dots (Scenic Designer), Holly Pierson (Costume Designer), Cha See (Lighting Designer), Daniel Kluger (Sound Design and Original Music), Drew Levy (Sound Designer), Leah J. Loukas (Wig Designer), Addison Heeren (Props Supervision), and David Dabbon (Musical Arrangements). Casting by Henry Russell Bergstein, CSA.
Oh, Mary! is produced by Kevin McCollum & Lucas McMahon and Mike Lavoie & Carlee Briglia with Bob Boyett, The Council, Jean Doumanian Productions, Nicole Eisenberg, Jay Marcus & George Strus, Irony Point, Richard Batchelder/Bradley Reynolds, Tyler Mount/Tommy Doyle, Nelson & Tao, Palomares Miller & Rosenberg, and ShowTown Productions.
Alaska
Alaska (Mary Todd Lincoln) (she/her) is an extraterrestrial phenomenon from the planet Glamtr0n. After crash-landing on Earth, she found herself on the fifth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, where she finished in the final 3 before returning to take the crown as the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 2. Alongside certified platinum selling songwriter/producer Tomas Costanza and Ash Gordon, Alaska co-wrote and starred in the Off-Broadway hit Drag: The Musical, winning an Outer Critics Circle award for outstanding new Off-Broadway musical, and receiving 2 Drama League Award nominations, 3 Dorian Theater World Award nominations, 6 Lucille Lortel Award nominations, and winning the Queerty and the Glam Award during its celebrated Off-Broadway run. Alaska co-founded the LGBTQ+ podcast network known as Moguls of Media (MOM), giving birth to such hit podcasts as Very Delta, RNR with Courtney Act, and Hall & Closet, and she is the co-host and creator of the award-winning and wildly popular Race Chaser with Alaska & Willam. She has released five career-defining studio albums, Anus, Poundcake, Vagina, Red 4 Filth, and Amethyst Journey, with Rolling Stone magazine spotlighting two of her songs, “Hieeee” & “Read You Wrote You,” in their 2024 “20 Best Songs By Drag Queens” profile. She is the creator/director of the Los Angeles based experimental drag series Drag Show 5000, co-founder and star of Brooklyn’s underground, diva-worship phenomenon Divatronic alongside director Nick Laughlin and also co-created the Drag Queen of the Year Pageant Competition Award Contest Competition with Lola LeCroix. She also wrote a memoir (My Name’s Yours, What’s Alaska) and created a signature fragrance (Red For Filth). She can currently be found touring the planet, often with longtime musical collaborator Handsome Jeremy, spreading her otherworldly message of love, kindness, and extraterrestrial glamour with the people of Earth. Other credits include Head Over Heels (LA Drama Critics Circle Award nomination), The Quiet Room by director Sam Wineman, God Save The Queens (Tribeca Film Festival), The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time, Hulu’s Drag Me To Dinner, VH1’s Scared Famous, Dimension 20’s Dungeons and Dragons Queens, and D’arcy Drollinger’s latest film Lady Champagne (Frameline Film Festival).
J. Harrison Ghee
J. Harrison Ghee (Mary’s Husband) (they/them) won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, making history as the first non-binary actor to be nominated and win in this category for their role as Daphne/Jerry in Some Like It Hot, a role which also garnered them Grammy, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as Drama League and Chita Rivera Award nominations. Recently J. starred in the world premiere of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as well as the Off-Broadway smash Saturday Church. Ghee was selected by Billy Porter to star as Robyn/Kevin on the hit FOX series Accused and previously played the series regular of Kwame on Netflix’s Raising Dion. On Broadway, they starred as Lola in Kinky Boots, created the role of Andre Mayhem in Mrs. Doubtfire, and have dazzled audiences in roles such as Velma Kelly in Chicago and Johnny Hooker in The Sting, opposite Harry Connick, Jr. Ghee hopes that something they do or say reaches the heart of at least one person to inspire them to dream big and go full-out for those dreams.
Oh, Mary!
What people are saying about Oh, Mary!
“You’ll be losing your mind with joy.” – The New York Times, Critic’s Pick
"The funniest show on Broadway.” – New York Post
“★★★★★ The funniest play in years. Oh, Mary! is dizzyingly, breathtakingly funny, the kind of funny that ambushes your body into uncontained laughter.” – Time Out New York
“A singular work of virtuoso comedy that is as inventive and shrewd as it is absolutely stupid.” – The Daily Beast
“There’s funny, there’s very funny, and then there’s Oh, Mary!” – Deadline
“80 minutes of almost uninterrupted laughter. A work of genius.” – The Hollywood Reporter
“Unquestionably the funniest, gayest, campiest play Broadway has seen in years.” – Variety