Meg Stalter once again donned the bratty, curled wig of Mary Todd Lincoln last night, returning to her Broadway debut performance as the lead in Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! after a weeklong absence due to bronchitis.
Just prior to the Friday evening performance, Stalter posted an Instagram Story photo of herself, apparently in her dressing room at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, with the note, “Planning on being back in the show tonight as long as my voice doesn’t give out.”
All went as planned. Subsequent after-show additions to her Instagram Story included re-posts of audience member IGs with photos and brief video clips of the Hacks actor taking her bows at curtain to a standing ovation. “Bronchitis has nothing on this bitch!,” captioned one fan, while another noted, that Stalter “was literally born to play Mary. A perfect performance! Brava!”
Stalter’s recent absence from the show – which she joined July 6 just a week before falling ill – prompted bizarre internet speculation that the comedian had actually skipped the show to visit New York’s Comedy Cellar comedy club, a rumor apparently started on Reddit when one Redditer, apparently, saw someone at the club who resembled Stalter.
“There’s a whole thread on Reddit I guess about how people think I was at the comedy cellar and I’d just like to go on record saying I was not at the comedy cellar,” Stalter said in an Instagram post. “I’m very sick and have no voice but doing everything I can to be back in the shows this weekend. love you forever stop saying I was at the comedy cellar please.”
Stalter revisited the rumor – if, it seems, silently – when she greeted fans at the Lyceum’s stage door after the show Friday night, signing Playbills and sporting a handwritten sign hanging from her neck.
“The Princess is on vocal rest!!,” the sign read. “But she was NEVER at the Comedy Cellar!”
Screen capture of Stalter’s Instagram Story re-post
Stalter’s run in the show ends September 12.
