Cole Escola
Appearances
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Just another ploy to keep me from drinking and tucked away in the drawing room where no one can see me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Contrary to what your paranoia tells you, I'm not some evil mastermind conspiring to keep you miserable. When you keep me off the stage, you make the whole world miserable. God, for God's sake, Mary, how would it look for the First Lady of the United States to be flitting about the stage right now in the ruins of war? How would it look sensational?
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Thank you for having me. I couldn't have put it better myself. That is exactly who I am.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
She's one of those people that everyone just has sort of background knowledge of, you know, like Mrs. Claus or like, you know, toasters have two slots. It's just things you accept online.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
And those kinds of things and people are what interest me most because I guess comedy relies so much on expectation that if I know there's a shared expectation by the wide audience, then it's easier to subvert it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
I don't remember what sparked it. I just remember walking around Lincoln Center and I had the thought, what if Abraham Lincoln's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary Todd? And it was just an idea that tickled me so much. And originally, in my mind, it was the seed of an idea for, like, Mary's second chapter. Like, sort of Nancy Meyers-style divorcee rom-com.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Like, what did Mary Todd Lincoln do after? You know, like... She fully leaned into herself. And then, yeah, slowly over 12 years, I kept having other little ideas that eventually added up to the play.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
This play is about... A woman with a dream that no one around her understands. A dream that the whole world is telling her is stupid and doesn't make any sense. And I feel that way.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
It's about the story of the song rather than the singing mostly. And yeah. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was this monthly cabaret show called Our Hit Parade at Joe's Pub. And it was 10 different cabaret or musical or performance artists performing the top 10 Billboard songs of the month, doing their own interpretations of those songs. And it was a monthly show, usually, you know, like... over half of the same people and then a few, you know, special guests.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
And we did that every month for like three years. And I was a regular guest. And it's truly like, I didn't go to school, but I feel like that's where I cut my teeth, so to speak, and learned how to perform and how to write for an audience.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
When I was three, my dad chased my mom and me and my little brother out of our trailer because he thought the government was after him. They weren't. But we ended up going to my grandmother's anyway. Actually, we made a pit stop at my mom's AA sponsor's house, but that's for a different show.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
And I remember when we got there, I was really scared and confused because I wasn't sure, are we living here now? And... I remember going to my mom and telling her that I was really scared and afraid. And she gave me the best piece of advice that I've ever received. And she said, Cole, go away. And 15 years later, I did. I moved here to New York City. I followed, yes.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
That was seven years ago. And four years ago, I came on this stage and did my first our hip parade. And I sang this song. Take a deep breath as I walk through the doors. It's the morning of the very first day. Say hi to my friends who I ain't seen in a while. Try and stay out of everybody's way. It's my freshman year and I'm gonna be here for the next four years in this town.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Hoping one of the senior boys will smile at me and say, you know, I haven't seen you around before.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Cause when you're 15 and somebody tells you he loves you, you're gonna believe them.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
I mean, listening to that, I wanted to jump out of a window. That was 13 years ago. It was a long time ago. Look, I would have done that a lot differently now, and I would have done it differently knowing that other people would listen to it later.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
All the phases. I'll see you at Carnegie Hall in a couple of years.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
I do have memories of that. And I remember being excited that we were going to my grandma's because I didn't like the trailer where we lived and I didn't like my father.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Yeah. And my grandmother and I shared a bedroom and she taught me how to read. And yeah.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
She told this story a lot about her 10th birthday when she found out her dad had a stroke and died working in some sort of mine in Canada. And then there was also a story about how She really couldn't see. Her eyesight was really bad, but her family couldn't afford glasses. But then one day a doctor came to town and gave her a free pair of glasses. These aren't great stories.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
It was always the way... that she told them and the details and the way she, you know, she disappeared into the story in the telling of it. Like, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of money. And mom made $3 a month, $3 a month, six kids and $3 a month. And just the seriousness. I mean, I'm laughing because I'm just now realizing it was a cabaret act.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
I never put that together. That was my first exposure to cabaret, was hearing my grandmother with Alzheimer's retell me stories about her childhood in Alberta, Canada.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would go to lunch with them. I don't know why my mom – I'm sure she knew. I mean it was literally every Monday of second grade that I would say, I'm sick. I need to go to grandma's. And we would go to this burger joint or the diner with my grandma, Irene, and her friends, Ruby, Grace, and Shirley.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Undoubtedly. I wanted... I mean, I wanted to be with them. I wanted to be them. I just they were and they because they also loved me. They loved I was so precocious and they were always just shower. I mean, after my grandmother died. Her Alzheimer's got really bad and she had to move into a nursing home and the group of gals split up and all went their separate ways because of health issues.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
I started going to church by myself. I was like 11 years old because I needed that validation from God. I needed someone brewing coffee for the group to look at me and say, well, aren't you just so polite? That was life to me.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
That was my first professional acting job. But when I was, I think, five, we didn't have performing arts in our town. But there was this company called Missoula Children's Theater. And every year, two adults from this theater company would come to town for one week. And in that one week, they would do auditions on Monday and the show was on Friday. And I just lived for that one week, a year.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
But then, yeah, my first professional acting job was in a production of Grapes of Wrath. I played Winfield Jode. And it was in a town 30 miles away from Klatskanai, where I grew up. And... During that time, my grandmother lived in a nursing home and it was much, much, much closer to the theater than where I lived. So some nights after rehearsals, I would stay over at her nursing home.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Well, I wasn't sure that I was allowed to be there. I knew I could visit. I was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to spend the night. But I did anyway, and it felt... It was weird. I was lying to so many adults just so that I could be in this play. I think I lied to my mom and I told her like, oh, no, the play feeds us.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
And meanwhile, I wasn't eating because I knew if I said I need money for food, she would say, well, we can't do that. I'm sorry, you can't do this play. And, you know, I lied again.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
to the adults in the play saying like, oh yeah, no, I can stay with my grandma in the nursing home so I can be late at rehearsal and just 11 years old trying to keep everyone in the dark about the fact that I was a child.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Yeah. Yeah. This woman that played Rose of Sharon, her name was Susan. She bought me food on our meal breaks every day. And it was never an issue. I never asked her. She just she saw what was going on. And yeah. She would buy me food and then other actors would give me rides to my grandma's nursing home. And I was in heaven.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Well, because I was a, for all intents and purposes at the time, a boy who could sing. I was always cast as the romantic male lead. Yeah, for the most part, I played these really boring parts that didn't speak to me or spark me at all. And Sort of for that reason, I didn't pursue acting after high school. I didn't think that that's what I wanted to do.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
No, I didn't even picture myself as a performer. I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, but I was like, oh, okay, so if I want to be an actor, I'm going to have to go to school and learn how to move less gay and talk less gay and play these boring boy parts. And I was like, I don't think I want to do that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
Yeah, especially back then. Now I don't at all. And I would play the stage manager in our town like a bitter, bitchy old jaded queen and not think nothing of it.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
In fact, someone please produce that. That would be great. I would love to try that out.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
You are not going back to that. It has a name. It doesn't deserve one.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Sarah Silverman / Cole Escola
The thing I love more than anything on earth is cabaret. Yeah!
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It was a cabaret act. I never put that together. That was my first exposure to cabaret, was hearing my grandmother with Alzheimer's retell me stories about her childhood in Alberta, Canada.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, I read that you used to stay at home on Mondays because on Mondays your grandmother would have lunch with her friends and you really wanted to hang out with them.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would go to lunch with them. I don't know why my mom – I'm sure she knew. I mean it was literally every Monday of second grade that I would say, I'm sick. I need to go to grandma's. And we would go to this burger joint or the diner with my grandma, Irene, and her friends, Ruby, Grace, and Shirley.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
In your comedy, you often do characters that are middle-aged women, like Mary and like these women that you're speaking of. Do you think your appreciation for women of that certain age sort of began with your grandmother and her friends?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I mean, undoubtedly. I wanted... I mean, I wanted to be with them. I wanted to be them. I just they were and they because they also loved me. They loved I was so precocious and they were always just shower. I mean, after my grandmother, her Alzheimer's got really bad and she had to move into a nursing home and the
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
You know, the sort of group of gals split up and all went their separate ways because of health issues. I started going to church by myself. I was like 11 years old because I needed that validation from – I needed someone, you know, brewing coffee for the group to look at me and say, well, aren't you just so polite? That was life to me. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Did you actually become religious then or were you in it for the social? No shade either way.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
No, no, no. A little of both. I mean, I definitely remember in that period I was praying a lot to God to make me bisexual. I knew my attraction to men was so strong. I knew I was like, well, there's no way even God can take that away. I'm not asking you to take anything away. Just give me, please, an attraction to women and I will only act on that, I promise.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
which, you know, in retrospect is, of course, sad, but also now that I'm safe, it's amusing.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
My guest is comic writer and actor Cole Escola. They're nominated for two Tony Awards, Best Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play, for the Broadway show Oh Mary. More after a break. I'm Anne-Marie Baldonado, and this is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
When did you find performing? I think your first play was when you were 11?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
That was my first professional acting job. But when I was, I think, five, we didn't have performing arts in our town, in Klatskanai. But there was this company called Missoula Children's Theater. And every year, two adults from this theater company would come to town for one week. And in that one week, they would do auditions on Monday, and the show was on Friday.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
That's Tony nominee Cola Scola as Mary and Tony nominee Conrad Ricamora as Abraham Lincoln. Cola Scola first received rave reviews for O'Mary when it premiered off-Broadway in 2024 before transferring to Broadway. In addition to all the Tony nominations, the play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And I just lived for that one week, a year. But then, yeah, my first professional acting job was in a production of Grapes of Wrath. I played Winfield Jode. And it was in a town 30 miles away from Klatskanai, where I grew up. And... During that time, my grandmother lived in a nursing home, and it was much, much, much closer to the theater than where I lived.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
So some nights after rehearsals, I would stay over at her nursing home.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
What was it like being a kid in the nursing home?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, I wasn't sure that I was allowed to be there. I knew I could visit. I was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to spend the night. But I did anyway, and it felt... It was weird. I was lying to so many adults just so that I could be in this play. I think I lied to my mom and I told her like, oh, no, the play feeds us.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And meanwhile, I wasn't eating because I knew if I said I need money for food, she would say, well, we can't do that. I'm sorry, you can't do this play. And, you know, I lied again. To the adults in the play saying like, oh, yeah, no, I can stay with my grandma in the nursing home so I can be late at rehearsal.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And just 11 years old trying to keep everyone in the dark about the fact that I was a child.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, you know, Grapes of Wrath, a serious play. Very. But you, like you're saying, but you ended up finding community there, like an extended family almost.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. This woman that played Rose of Sharon, her name was Susan, she bought me food on our meal breaks every day. Yeah. It was never an issue. I never asked her. She saw what was going on. And yeah, so she would buy me food and then other actors would give me rides to my grandma's nursing home. And I was in heaven.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Now you were in shows, like you said, you were in Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, Les Miserables. What kind of parts did you play?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, because I was a, you know, for all intents and purposes at the time, a boy who could sing. I was always cast as, you know, like the romantic male lead, like Matt in the Fantastics or Marius and Les Mis. Seymour on Little Shop was a little fun because at least I got to dance a tango with Mr. Mushnik for Mushnik and Son. So I got to be girl in that one number.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
But yeah, for the most part, I played these really boring parts that didn't speak to me or spark me at all. And sort of for that reason, I... didn't pursue acting after high school. I didn't think that that's what I wanted to do.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
So when you sort of pictured yourself as a performer in the future, it wasn't as an actor in plays?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
No, I didn't even picture myself as a performer. I just, I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, but I was like, oh, okay, so if I want to be an actor... I'm going to have to go to school and learn how to move less gay and talk less gay and play these boring boy parts. And I was like, I don't think I want to do that.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Cola Scola first came up in the cabaret and alt comedy scenes of New York after moving to the city 20 years ago. They also gained a cult following through their online shorts. They have starred in shows including Search Party, Difficult People, and At Home with Amy Sedaris, and have written for shows like Hacks, Z-Way, and the other two. Cola Scola, welcome to Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, you've said that you always associated, quote unquote, theater with pretending to be straight.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
That's what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. Even back then you felt that way?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah, especially back then. Now I don't at all. And, you know, I would play the stage manager in our town like a bitter, bitchy old jaded queen and not think nothing of it. In fact, someone please produce that. I would love to try that out.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, when you first were in New York, you weren't sure that you wanted to be a performer. What then inspired you to become one, to start making viral videos, which is what you did first?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, it was a couple things. There was – I was miserable. I was truly suicidal. I was bulimic. And I was walking around near Bloomingdale's, and I remember I was having these thoughts about not wanting to be alive. And then I started having those thoughts in a character's voice. A voice not unlike my grandma and her friends. And I came up with this character, Joyce Connor, who was a...
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
really sort of cheery, innocuous middle-aged woman who just kept having to put off her suicide because so many things kept popping up over the weekend. And that, for some reason, was like this huge release valve. Like, it both... allowed me to feel what I was feeling, but also relieved me from feeling burdened by what I was feeling.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
My guest is Cole Escola. Again, if you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can call or text the number 988. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. Well, you were part or maybe still are part of what New York Magazine called at the time a wave of new queer comedy with comics like Bowen Yang and John Early and all the people you've been mentioning in the 2010s, I guess.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Were there places where queer comedians would perform outside of what could be considered quote unquote mainstream comedy clubs, whatever that means?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I actually kind of predated it a little bit. I was emceeing folk shows as characters at dive bars. I just sort of went where I was invited or where I felt like I could get in. I never sought out... new ground to break. I was just like, I want to do this thing that I want to do. Where can I do it? There? Okay. I'll make it good. And hopefully if I make it good, people will come.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I imagine that the shows that you were doing as being places where friends would gather and try to make each other laugh and maybe be silly or absurd as much as possible.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I – I didn't really and still don't identify really as a comedian because it's hard for me to just, like, plug and play, as they say. Like, just, like, take what I do and stick it in a lineup. Like, I would perform with these, you know, other brilliant comedians like Bowen and John and Julio Torres and Joel Kim Booster and Matt Rogers.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Thank you for having me. I couldn't have put it better myself. That is exactly who I am.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
But, you know, the list goes on and on. But I... always felt a little like they were doing their old aunt a favor, letting her bring her wigs and do her little characters. And it's hard to win an audience over. You know, stand-up is you're talking to the audience, and then I come on in a wig and put up a fourth wall, and it's like, what? Ew. Go away.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, is it out of this community that O'Mary became possible? Did you workshop it and try it out in smaller venues or did O'Mary kind of come out fully formed?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
OK, great. Well, do you remember when you first learned about Mary Todd Lincoln and what you learned about her or at least like what your early memories were of her or the president?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It basically came out fully formed. For three years, I did a solo sketch show every month at the duplex. And I did it at the duplex because if you got over 60 or 65 people, they let you keep 100% of the door because they made money off the two-drink minimum. I truly did it because I was like... oh my God, I can perform and make like $900 a month.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And so I set this challenge up for myself that I would write a whole new hour every month. And I did that. And it was so challenging and maybe the most like fun, rewarding thing that I ever did for myself. But in writing sketches, I sort of learned how I think a scene should work.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And then after doing those shows for three years, I thought, I wonder if I can build a show of scenes like this that makes sense altogether with an arc, but that also are, you know, like tight, funny scenes. Basically a sitcom. I wanted to see if I could write a sitcom.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think plays predate sitcoms. You'll have to fact check me on that. Get your research department on the phone. But, yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Was it surprising to you? Like, did you ever in your mind imagine that it would become this phenomenon that it is?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Never, never, ever, ever. I mean, who... Who would ever think like, okay, Cole, a play where you're in drag playing Mary Todd Lincoln as a wannabe cabaret star. I think you should pursue this as a big Broadway hit. Like that, I mean, absolutely not. We were like over the moon that we got eight weeks at the Lucille Lortel Theater. And I still think that's really cool.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. And those kinds of things and people are what interest me most because I guess comedy relies so much on expectation that if I know there's a shared expectation by the wide audience, then it's easier to subvert it.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I can't believe that we did get that. But, like, yeah. I still can't really wrap my head around it. And I'm leaving the show. June 21st is my last performance. And I'm slowly starting to... wrap my head around the whole experience. And I will say I've been crying a lot.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, you left the show earlier this year, took a few months off, but then you came back. I'm wondering if when you first left, did you know you were leaving the role for just a short period of time and coming back? Because it's rare for original cast members to return to a show after leaving.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I well, I wanted to come back because I was like, I want to close the show. I thought this was when we were like, OK, we're closing at the end of June. And, you know, we we intended to do this show eight weeks off Broadway. And then once it was going well, we were like, oh my God, I hope we can extend three weeks.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And then we went to Broadway and then suddenly I was doing the play for a full calendar year. I had... And projects like scripts that I had promised that I had been paid to write that I didn't write because I was like, well, I'll do it after the eight week O'Mary run. And then, OK, well, I'll do it after the three week extension. And I was just like, I need I need a break.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I also had to move out of my apartment. I was like, I just need time to like get all of these things back in order. And then I want to come back to the show and say goodbye to the show and close it.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
When you first took your break, you handed it off first to actress Betty Gilpin and then to actor Titus Burgess. Yes. What was it like handing off the role that you wrote for yourself?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I was scared. I don't know. I was scared for all the reasons. What if they don't quite get it? I don't know. I was scared because I didn't know what to expect. And then the way that they both embraced this role, it's... Like, it was their dream role.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It's so satisfying, and I've said this before, but, like, as someone who was always begging their friends to, like, please be in my movie, like, can we please, like, make this little movie? Can we please, like, put a skit together for the talent show? To now have, like...
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Two of my favorite actors in the world, Betty Gilpin and Titus Burgess, who are both so deep and so funny, take on a role and love it as if it was given to them by Mike Nichols or George Cukor. It's like, I can't think of a better feeling.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
What is making you so emotional about leaving the show? I mean, it is something you've devoted so much time to for decades.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I can't believe that my big break came from doing what I wanted to do, like not compromising myself. I always assumed that if, like, you know, I ever had any sort of quote-unquote real career success, you know, I would be the gay best friend on a sitcom I'm embarrassed to talk about on a panel. But it's also the best thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
So I am excited to write what's next.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Cole Escola, congratulations on the Tony nominations, and thank you so much for joining us.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, can you talk about how you first came up with the idea? I think it was in 2009. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I don't remember what sparked it. I just remember walking around Lincoln Center and I had the thought, what if Abraham Lincoln's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary Todd? And it was just an idea that tickled me so much. And originally, in my mind, it was the seed of an idea for, like, Mary's second chapter. Like, a sort of Nancy Meyers-style divorcee rom-com.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Like, what did Mary Todd Lincoln do after? You know, like... She fully leaned into herself. And then, yeah, slowly over 12 years, I kept having other little ideas that eventually added up to the play.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Now, in an article about the play, one writer says Escola mauls American history. And, you know, you do take dramatic license. When people ask you if you did research, you joke that you've tried to unlearn what you already knew. But can you talk about why you did not want to do research?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, because it's a comedy and I had to make something with the same understanding that my audience has, like everyone in New York City. I have seen the first 20 minutes of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. And I do remember learning bits of information about her coming to New York, you know, during wartime and...
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
spending outrageous amounts of money shopping for furniture and clothes and, you know, people in the government and people in America sort of being angry at her for doing that, you know, during wartime. And I don't know. I just really related to her. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. And she also remodeled the White House. Yes. With new china and new drapes.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. I mean, she was stuck there. What was she supposed to do? I sort of feel for her in a way that like the only option she was given is sit there and look sad. Sit there and be the nation's sadness.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, I mean, that's another thing that you kind of learn is that she was a grieving woman. I mean, even before her husband was assassinated, she had children who died young. She was grieving. She suffered from mental illness. Were those also parts of the inspiration for the play? Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
You know, the grieving mother stuff, I mostly – I didn't want to have to, like, cast children or figure out children. So I just sort of decided, oh, she hates her kids. And that solved that. They both do. They both do. Yeah. They both hate their kids. And then, you know, funny enough, I read something not long ago about how the Lincolns were, you know, neglectful parents, like –
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Abraham would just let them run rampant in his work study when he was a lawyer. This is literally based on like reading three sentences of an article.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And so it's true. And I'm saying it on NPR.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yes. Well, you've said that this play is very personal.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And I'll say it again. It's very personal.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
This play is about a woman with a dream that no one around her understands. A dream that the whole world is telling her is stupid and doesn't make any sense. And I feel that way.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
You've also said that the feeling that Mary has, that everyone is annoyed with her, is something that you relate to. Because Abraham thinks that Mary is too much and her dreams are too much. And you worry about that with the way people felt about you.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah, this play is about a person that everyone thinks is annoying, which is my worst fear. So I'm sort of playing out, basically, can the audience root for someone... annoying. Can a character be so incredibly annoying and you still root for them?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
But is part of it that Mary, you know, she just wants to express herself. She wants to live her truth.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
While, you know, when in her marriage, her role in society, her gender have sort of prevented her from doing any of that.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. Yeah. And that also applies to the rest of the characters in this play. Every one of these characters is dealing with... a deep secret desire that they think they shouldn't have. You know, Abraham Lincoln's sexuality. Every character in this play has a want that they think they shouldn't want.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
The New York Times calls the play Oh Mary unhinged, so campy, and so unexpected. They've also called it one of the best comedies in years. Those looking for a close to historically accurate version of Mary Todd Lincoln should definitely look elsewhere because this play is a reimagining based on very few facts.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
For people who haven't seen you as Mary, can you describe your wig and your dress?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
They're like so fun to put on and run and jump around in. I mean, the curls in the wig are high and tight and they bounce in the most obnoxious, petulant way. And the skirt is... so big and cumbersome and yet light enough that I can rip it around like I'm a Tasmanian devil in a tornado.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I want to unpack what it is about cabaret that Mary loves and maybe that you love, too. What sets cabaret apart from other kinds of performing? There are some things that are maybe factual about cabaret. You know, it's intimate. There's interaction with the audience. It's about personal storytelling.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It's about the story of the song rather than the singing mostly. And yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, like Mary, you are a well-known cabaret singer. And you came up through this downtown New York scene with people like Bridget Everett and Murray Hill, who people might know from the HBO series Somebody Somewhere, among other things. Can you describe what that scene was like? This is the mid to late 2000s.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was this monthly cabaret show called Our Hit Parade at Joe's Pub. And it was 10 different cabaret or musical or performance artists performing the top 10 Billboard songs of the month, doing their own interpretations of those songs. And it was a monthly show, usually, you know, like... Over half of the same people and then a few, you know, special guests.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And we did that every month for like three years. And I was a regular guest. And it's truly like I didn't go to school, but I feel like that's where I cut my teeth, so to speak, and learned like how to perform and how to write for an audience. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, there's footage online of you performing at the last show in 2012, which was kind of a celebration of the show coming to an end. Would you mind if we played a little bit of your performance?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Here, the First Lady is depressed, sad, beside herself, and constantly drinking, not because of the Civil War or even the deaths of her children. She longs for her only true love, Cabaret, and her husband, the President, will try anything to stop her.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
That's Cola Scola performing in 2012. I love that performance. And the joy of you singing a Taylor Swift song, that's the Taylor Swift song, 15, about being in high school.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I mean, listening to that, I wanted to jump out of a window.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It was a long time ago. Look, I would have done that a lot differently now, and I would have done it differently knowing that other people would listen to it later.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, I will say that I would pay good money to hear you sing the Taylor Swift songbook. All the phases.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I'll see you at Carnegie Hall in a couple years.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yes. Cole, can you describe where you grew up in Oregon?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah, I grew up in a town called Klatskenai, Oregon. It's also the birthplace of Raymond Carver, by the way. So you will see a lot of similarities in our work. But it is a very rainy mill town. It's a gas station on your way from Portland to the coast. It's like 1,500 people, lots of trees, and nothing much else.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And that story that you tell on stage during your cabaret act, is that true? You were young. Do you have memories of that?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
I do have memories of that. And I remember being excited that we were going to my grandma's because I didn't like the trailer where we lived. And I didn't like my father.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
And you ended up living with your grandmother.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Yeah. And my grandmother and I shared a bedroom. And she taught me how to read. And yeah. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
Well, you said that you loved to hear your grandmother's stories. Yeah, yeah. What were some of your favorite stories that she would tell you?
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
She told this story a lot about her 10th birthday when she found out her dad had a stroke and died working in some sort of mine in Canada. And then there was also a story about how She really couldn't see. Her eyesight was really bad, but her family couldn't afford glasses. But then one day a doctor came to town and gave her a free pair of glasses. These aren't great stories.
Fresh Air
Cole Escola's 'Stupid' Dream Came True With 'Oh, Mary!'
It was always the way... that she told them and the details and the way she, you know, she disappeared into the story and the, in the telling of it, like, um, um, and I, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of money. And mom made $3 a month, $3 a month, six kids and $3 a month. And the, the, just the seriousness. I mean, I'm laughing cause I'm just now realizing, um,