Maya Rudolph to make Broadway debut starring in ‘Oh, Mary!’
Maya Rudolph attends the 2026 EE BAFTA Film Awards at The Royal Festival Hall on Feb. 22, 2026, in London, England. (Samir Hussein/WireImage via Getty Images)
Oh, Mary? More like Oh, Maya!
Maya Rudolph will make her Broadway debut by taking on the starring role of Mary Todd Lincoln in the Tony Award-winning play Oh, Mary!
Rudolph’s run in the production will be an eight-week limited engagement starting on April 28 and ending on June 20.
Oh, Mary!‘s official Instagram shared a poster with Rudolph adorned in Mary’s signature bratty curls. The account also posted a video of Maya in costume as Mary as she finds a mirror that has the phrase, “You’re next, Maya,” written in all caps using red lipstick.
Cole Escola created, wrote and won a Tony for starring in Oh, Mary! The show is a one-act comedy play centered on Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to her husband Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch‘s John Cameron Mitchell is currently starring as Mary Todd Lincoln in the production. His final performance in the role will be April 26.
Anthony Geary and Genie Francis attend The Paley Center for Media Presents “General Hospital: Celebrating 50 years and Looking Forward” at The Paley Center for Media on April 12, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
General Hospital actress Genie Francis is remembering her late co-star Anthony Geary, who died Sunday at the age of 78. Francis and Geary famously starred as Laura and Luke Spencer in the long-running soap opera for 37 years.
“Tony was a very warm person, very sensitive person, and incredibly funny,” Francis told ABC News. “I was very, very young and Tony was very protective of me. But we knew we were doing something very edgy.”
“[Television producer] Gloria Monty always said that we were going to change the face of daytime,” Francis continued. “And we were doing that. We were so excited. We didn’t want to leave when we were released. We’d sometimes sit on the stage and just talk about what we had done.”
Francis and Geary’s portrayal of the iconic couple earned both Daytime Emmy Awards and in 1981, when their characters married, about 30 million Americans tuned in to watch the wedding on General Hospital.
Geary opened up about his and Francis’ chemistry and success together in an interview with Good Morning America back in 2013.
“There are all kinds of successes but ours was different in that it was truly lightning in a bottle,” Geary said at the time. “It was the most unexpected place, a soap opera, which was about to be canceled, that took everyone’s interest and swept the nation. It’s a piece of history that I’m glad I took part in.”
Francis, now 63, said she will miss her longtime partner.
“I’m just heartbroken. I’m so sad,” said Francis. “But again, I am so lucky that I got to have this man as my first leading man. He ruined me. He ruined me for leading men for the rest of my life basically. Because I started with the best.”
Will Arnett and Laura Dern star in Bradley Cooper’s film, ‘Is This Thing On?’ (Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures)
Bradley Cooper directs Will Arnett in his third film, Is This Thing On?
The new movie, which arrives in theaters on Friday, tells the story of a marriage falling apart. It follows Arnett’s Alex, who copes with the grief of separating from his wife Tess, played by Laura Dern, by becoming a stand-up comedian.
Arnett and Dern participated in a press conference after a screening of Is This Thing On? at the 2025 New York Film Festival, where they spoke about the process of creating this new film.
Arnett, who is a comedian himself, said he purposefully played Alex to be less funny than he is in real life.
“That progression of Alex as a stand-up was really important to us,” Arnett said. “He’s not the Michael Jordan of comedy. So, the first time he goes onstage, he’s never been in front of a mic in front of people before. And then you see him progressively get comfortable.”
The actor said there were even times on set where he’d deliver a joke as Alex and it “was too good.”
“It was too clean,” Arnett said. “[It] actually made people who were there actually watching laugh.”
Dern said that Arnett was “the greatest dance partner any girl could ever ask for as an actor.”
“That was a very beautiful, incredible acting opportunity for me and really beautiful to have Bradley hold us in it. It was really incredible through rehearsal, all the way through every day of work together,” Dern said. “It takes a lot of bravery to be willing to be pure and simple in truth, and so I really revere that in the experience we had.”
Disney is the parent company of ABC News and Is This Thing On? distributor Searchlight Pictures.
Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd annual Actor Awards, March 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
With less than a week to go before the 2026 Oscars, Timothée Chalamet is facing backlash for comments he made about opera and ballet in a recent interview.
The actor has specifically been criticized by some in the arts community for saying “no one cares” about ballet and opera, suggesting they are dying arts.
“I admire people — and I’ve done it myself — [who] go on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive, you know, we gotta keep this genre alive,'” Chalamet said during a town hall with Matthew McConaughey in late February, presented by CNN and Variety. “And I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore.”
Chalamet quickly added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there,” as the crowd laughed.
“I just lost 14 cents in viewership,” he said.
Megan Fairchild, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, responded to Chalamet’s comments on Instagram last week, sharing a video of herself alongside a caption that read in part, “Artists supporting artists matters. None of these paths are easy, and there’s no need to put ballet or opera down along the way.”
“Ballet and opera aren’t niche hobbies people opt out of for fame,” Fairchild said in the video. “They’re disciplines you can only enter if you have the rare ability for them in the first place.”
Conductor Alondra de la Parra also joined the chorus of pushback in a viral Instagram video in which she walks out of a prop coffin, saying jokingly, “I’m coming out of my coffin, because… we’re dead.”
The Seattle Opera, meanwhile, seized on Chalamet’s comments as an opportunity to promote its production of “Carmen,” giving operagoers 14% off tickets with the promo code “TIMOTHEE.”
“Timmy, you’re welcome to use it too,” the company wrote in the caption of an Instagram post Friday.
Chalamet has previously spoken about his family’s own history in the arts, particularly his mother’s, grandmother’s and sister’s ballet careers.
“I grew up backstage at the New York City Ballet. My grandmother danced in the New York City Ballet, my mother danced in the New York City Ballet, my sister danced in the New York City Ballet,” he said in an interview last December promoting Marty Supreme, which has since resurfaced online.
The pushback comes just days ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, which take place Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Chalamet has been on a roll this award season, winning best actor statuettes at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and more.
Chalamet started off award season as the Oscar favorite for lead actor, though in recent weeks Sinners star Michael B. Jordan has emerged as another strong contender.
Kelley Carter, ABC News entertainment contributor, pointed to the timing of the backlash to Chalamet’s February town hall remarks, saying it is important to keep in mind that “awards season is a political campaign.”
“While you’re not going to see outright smear campaigns, you are going to see people resurfacing maybe unfavorable interviews at times,” she said.
ABC News has reached out to Chalamet’s representatives for comment.
