"I like celebrating people's wrongness," Krakowski says of the roles she chooses. "I don't shy away from that." Patric Shaw Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment To get into the right headspace to play Mary Todd Lincoln each night on Broadway, Jane Krakowski sings along to an album she feels meets the moment. "I'm very into The Ethel Merman Disco Album," she says. Krakowski, 57, has played a number of zany characters across her career - from Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal to Jenna Maroney in 30 Rock and Jacqueline Voorhees in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - and is now the latest to take on the outlandish lead character in Cole Escola's Tony-nominated play Oh, Mary!, a farce that reimagines the 16th first lady as a wannabe cabaret singer with a predilection for booze. Related Stories Movies Zohran Mamdani's Filmmaking Mother Mira Nair on Raising New York's Next Mayor Life After Hollywood Former Vampire Slayer Eliza Dushku Is Now Helping Others Fight More Harrowing Demons Her Mary retains the traditional "bratty curls" and brassy attitude of past interpretations, as the character rages and plots against her husband - listed in the credits as "Mary's Husband" - for not letting her perform her cabaret act as he contends with the Civil War. But she also maintains some of the groundedness and comedic timing Krakowski has perfected across her career. "I like celebrating people's wrongness. I don't shy away from that," she says. Krakowski flanked by Lucy Liu and Calista Flockhart on Ally McBeal. 20th Century Fox Film Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection Krakowski had long been a fan of Oh, Mary! - she'd seen it five times, catching Escola, the Tony Award-winning star and creator, twice and later returning to see Jinkx Monsoon, Betty Gilpin and Tituss Burgess in the role as the show's run continued. But she still didn't expect the part to come her way. The opportunity arrived while she was appearing in the late Stephen Sondheim's last musical, Here We Are, in London. Sam Pinkleton, the Tony-winning director of Oh, Mary!, happened to be the choreographer on that production and approached her backstage in a manner she describes as a boyfriend tiptoeing around a marriage proposal. "I was like, 'If you're alluding to what I think you are, I would say yes if you ask me,' " Krakowski recalls. She joined the show in October, alongside fellow newcomers Cheyenne Jackson (also a 30 Rock alum) as Mary's acting teacher and Tony nominee John-Andrew Morrison as her husband (you know, Abraham Lincoln). The show has been at the Lyceum Theatre since 2024, playing to capacity crowds for most of its run. Krakowski departs in January, when Monsoon returns. Ahead of her first bow, she was given a script and a video of Escola in the part, which she treated as gospel. With only two weeks of prep, she also followed the advice of Burgess, a close friend, and memorized the script well ahead of rehearsals, so that she could concentrate on finding her own Mary, and on maneuvering Mary's giant hoop skirt. While she jokes that she used "certain qualities" of Miss Piggy as a reference point, she also tried to approach the role seriously, starting with the character's wants. "I begin with the script," she explains of her process. "And I know this may sound crazy in something like Oh, Mary! - or many of the roles I played - but I try to bring an honesty to it, a reality, then lift it to the point of camp or high comedy." She's often been met at the stage door by fans wearing homemade 30 Rock-themed shirts with Jenna Maroney catchphrases including "The Rural Juror" and "Jenna's Side." While it's a surprise for a network comedy that ended more than a decade ago, Krakowski credits the show's endurance to its streaming revival and to Tina Fey's razor-sharp writing. "I feel like I honed a lot of my comedy while being on 30 Rock, and learned so much from the people there," she says. "Tina Fey's sense of humor is ever ongoing and brilliant." Krakowski in Oh, Mary! Emilio Madrid Krakowski, a 2003 Tony Award winner for her turn in the revival of Nine - where she descended from the rafters dangling from silks - says she is always looking for her next Broadway role, because she feels it brings her back to acting roots. She made her debut on the Great White Way at 17, in Starlight Express, an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about a child's train set that comes to life. Krakowski says this experience - as Dinah the Dining Car - helped her prepare for the rest of her stage career without necessarily being recognized on the street. "We could all feel the joys of being in a Broadway show, but we were trains. You couldn't see our actual faces," she says. Now, Krakowski's face and name are plastered across the marquee of the Lyceum Theatre. And after playing the scene-stealing sidekick for m