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Will Friday the 13th be your lucky day this month?
The side-splitting comedy Oh, Mary! is not just the year's top new play—as crowned today in Time Out's 2024 Best of the City Awards—but also a runaway box-office success. Cole Escola's highly irreverent and historically insouciant farce, a theatrical character assassination of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, has been selling out for months and has broken box-office records at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre ten successive times; last week, it grossed more than $1.2 million, and high demand has driven the show's average ticket price to $174. That's terrific for Escola and the show's producers, but less felicitous for non-rich people who want to see the year's buzziest production.
But there's hope yet for the huddled masses yearning to see theater cheap. This Friday, to mark this 206th anniversary of Mary Todd Lincoln's birth, the production is holding a lottery to distribute 206 balcony seats to that night's 7:30pm performance for just $5 a pop. (Real cash fivers, with Honest Abe's likeness on the front, are "strongly preferred.")
Here are the deets:
Lottery entrants should arrive at the Lyceum between 3:30pm and 4:15pm on Friday, December 13th to submit their names for the lottery. Don't bother lining up very far ahead of time; arriving early won't increase your chance of winning. But you'll need to hand in your entry before 4:30pm, when the drawing will be held, and you'll need to be present at the time of the drawing to claim your seats. Only one entry is permitted per person. Each winner may purchase one or two tickets for $5 each, and a photo ID is required to claim them. Seats are for that night's performance at 7:30pm; locations are assigned by the box office and some may be partial-view.
In addition to Escola as Mary, the show's cast includes Conrad Ricamora as Mary’s Husband, James Scully as Mary’s Teacher, Bianca Leigh as Mary’s Chaperone and Tony Macht as Mary’s Husband’s Assistant. Sam Pinkleton is the director. The wildly talented Betty Gilpin, the star of TV's GLOW and Mrs. Davis (and the author of the dizzying memoir All the Women in My Brain) takes over as Mary for eight weeks starting January 21.
Get your fins ready, and good luck diving in!