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The 2025 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama

Finalist: Oh, Mary!, by Cole Escola

A zany portrait of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln’s family life whose outrageous humor also serves as an empathetic celebration of anyone who’s been marginalized or misunderstood.

Nominated Work

Oh, Mary!

By

Cole Escola

‍Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in this 80-minute one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln, through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola).

Declared “one of the best comedies in years” by The New York Times, Oh, Mary! has received 5 Tony Award nominations for Best Play, Best Actor in a Play (Cole Escola), Best Featured Actor in a Play (Conrad Ricamora), Best Costume Design of a Play (Holly Pierson), and  Best Direction of a Play (Sam Pinkleton).

-- from the 2024-25 Broadway season production page

Biography

Cole Escola is a comedian, actor, and writer. They’ve received a Drama Desk Award, a Theatre World Award, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards for Oh, Mary! and they’re thrilled to make their Broadway debut with the show. Notable TV includes: “Search Party,” “At Home with Amy Sedaris,” “Difficult People” (on which they also wrote), “Man Seeking Woman,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” and “Ziwe” (for which they were also a writer). Cole consulted on “Hacks” for HBO and also wrote for “The Other Two” for Comedy Central. They were the co-creator, writer, and star of the lo-fi cult-hit TV show “Jeffrey and Cole Casserole,” and were named one of Vanity Fair's “25 Best Performances of 2023" for their special "Our Home Out West,” and “Best Sketch Comic of 2020” by the New York Times for their special “Help! I’m Stuck!,” which they filmed alone in their apartment during quarantine. Both self-produced specials are available on YouTube. Follow Cole on Instagram at @coleescola.

Winners

Prize Winner in Drama in 2025:

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

A play about the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper middle class African-American family whose patriarch was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, a skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage. Drama

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2025:

Itamar Moses

A timely drama about activism, conflicting expectations, and moral responsibility on a college campus, probing American identity and the contradictions within progressive politics, using richly drawn characters with a deep emotional resonance.

The Jury

David Henry Hwang(Chair)

Playwright; Professor of Theatre Arts in the Faculty of the Arts, Columbia University

Tanya Barfield

Co-Director, The Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program, The Juilliard School

Rebecca Gilman

Playwright and Artistic Associate, Goodman Theatre

Helen Shaw

Staff Writer, The New Yorker

José Luis Valenzuela

Director, Latino Theater Company, Los Angeles Theatre Center

Winners in Drama

2024

Eboni Booth

A simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community.
2023

Sanaz Toossi

A quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and also represent a new life.
2022

James Ijames

A funny, poignant play that deftly transposes "Hamlet" to a family barbecue in the American South to grapple with questions of identity, kinship, responsibility, and honesty.
2021

Katori Hall

A funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.
See All Drama

2025 Prize Winners

National Reporting

Staff of The Wall Street Journal

For chronicling political and personal shifts of the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, including his turn to conservative politics, his use of legal and illegal drugs and his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
See All 2025 Winners