When the play “Oh, Mary!” opened on Broadway, in the summer of 2024, it was in no way guaranteed to be a hit. A kooky comic farce that originally débuted downtown, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, the show had an outlandish premise: What if Mary Todd Lincoln was a delusional drunk who wanted more than anything to sing cabaret, much to the dismay of her President husband, who just so happened to be secretly gay? Its director, Sam Pinkleton, had never before helmed a Broadway production, and its writer and star, Cole Escola, would also be making their Broadway début. As it turns out, midtown was aching for an infusion of fresh talent, and “Oh, Mary!” quickly became a runaway sensation. The show is still selling out the Lyceum Theatre two years later—and remained a hit even after the departure of the Tony-winning Escola, who left the New York production in 2025 to pursue other opportunities. Escola, Pinkleton, and the “Oh, Mary!” team came up with a brilliant scheme for keeping audiences invested: what if they brought in consummate character actors to play Mary in short, highly publicized stints? Those who have stepped into Mary’s hoopskirt so far include Jane Krakowski, Maya Rudolph, Betty Gilpin, Jinkx Monsoon, Hannah Solow, John Cameron Mitchell, and Titus Burgess. In September, Bowen Yang will take over the role. But for the past two months the part of Mary has belonged to Megan Stalter, the thirty-five-year-old actress, singer, and comedian who first broke out via the HBO Max sitcom “Hacks,” in which she played a boisterous, entitled Hollywood agent named Kayla and stole nearly every scene she was in.
I recently went to see Stalter in “Oh, Mary!” and found myself laughing so hard that I audibly snorted; her physical choices, from cantilevering her body off a tall desk to stomping around like an overtired toddler, are inspired. Even aside from her bravura turn on Broadway, Stalter is having quite the year. “Hacks,” which was created by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, closed out its fifth and final season this spring as one of the most lauded comedies of its era. Over the course of the series, Stalter’s character transformed from a smarmy brat into a tenderhearted go-getter; Stalter and Downs, who plays her work partner, emerged as one of the most likable duos on television. Last summer, she also starred in Lena Dunham’s Netflix comedy “Too Much.” Now she’s developing a star vehicle of her own, called “Church Girls,” which will draw on her experiences growing up both queer and Pentecostal in Ohio.
Stalter got her start in Chicago, where she performed at venues such as Second City and ImprovOlympic while working a day job as a nanny. It was there that she developed her comic persona, which often involves playing a character who is both clueless and overconfident. During the pandemic, she gained notoriety for daffy front-facing videos such as “Hi, Gay!,” in which she affected the tone of a pandering marketing executive (“We are sashaying away with deals!”). Her work often blurs the line between absurdism and reality, to the point where it can be hard to know whether or not she is doing a bit—take, for example, her upcoming pop album, “Crave,” whose first single, “The Prettiest Girl in America,” dropped in May. Is Stalter a serious musician, or a comedian dipping into a character for a gag? Does it even matter? Either way, you’re dancing (and laughing). I sat down with Stalter the other day at the theatre-district watering hole Joe Allen. She had just gotten her voice back after a bout with laryngitis that took her out of a few “Oh, Mary!” performances, and she was thrilled to be back onstage. We shared a plate of fries and discussed “Oh, Mary!,” her red-carpet-outfit stunts, her scrappy days making Cameo videos, and why she believes that God loves gays. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
Let’s start with last night—I saw you in “Oh, Mary!” How did that show feel? Can you tell the different rhythms between performances, when it’s going well and when it is going less well?
Yes. I feel that we were amazing last night. You could feel the audience. There are definitely nights where maybe people are more . . . misbehaving. It’s not much, because people are pretty behaved when they see Broadway shows, but once in a while you’ll get someone who might say something back to you. Which isn’t really bad, but it’s more like they respond to a joke that they know they’re probably not supposed to. It’s not really a call and response.
No. It’s not “Rocky Horror.” [A waitress comes over and asks, “Anything to drink for you?”]
Can I have a Diet Coke with lime? [Stalter turns back.] Do you think that’ll make it in, that I had a Diet Coke?
No, but you know how sometimes the interviews will be, like, “She came in . . .”
“She ate a Cobb salad. She was glowing from the outside!”
“She’s sweaty, and two minutes late, and she looks like she ran here.”
This is not your first time living in New York, right?
I lived in New York right before the pandemic. Before that, I’d spent, like, seven years in Chicago doing improv and standup. And then finally I got a manager here, and I was, like, “Oh, my gosh.” The plan was to move to Los Angeles, but then I was, like, “New York’s so fun, and the standup scene’s so amazing. I’ve got to try it.” At that point, I was a nanny in Chicago, so I moved without a job, but I saved up enough to get here. I was needing money. And Cole [Escola] hired me to do a podcast with them—the “National Lampoon” podcast. That was actually my first comedy job that paid enough where I didn’t have to have a day job. It was like heaven because it was so cool you got to go into an office every day. It made me feel like I was on “S.N.L.” or something.
We became friends online. I remember just being so in love with them and their comedy and vice versa. Then we met and it felt like we knew each other forever.
How long before the pandemic did you move here?
Six or seven months. And it felt like things were picking up. I got to do shows every night if I wanted to, and I was becoming close friends with tons of comedians here. I had friends before I moved, too, like the Three Busy Debras and Cat Cohen. So I knew that when I got here I’d have a support system. I started doing Cameo videos, and then the pandemic hit. So Cameo saved me, because that’s how I made money. I did hundreds of them. I didn’t charge that much, but I had to do a lot. I was always doing it in character, and they’d be, like, five-minute-long videos because I didn’t want to charge people to have, like, a twenty-second video. It just felt so wrong. So I’d charge maybe thirty dollars for seven minutes.
