Cole Escola
speaker
166 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Cole Escola’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
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.
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.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
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.
In fact, someone please produce that. That would be great. I would love to try that out.
Thank you so much for having me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for having me. I couldn't have put it better myself. That is exactly who I am.
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?
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.
Well, can you talk about how you first came up with the idea? I think it was in 2009. Yeah.
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.
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.
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?
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...
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.
Showing 41–60 of 166 · page 3 of 9
← Previous
Next →