Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce See Broadway’s ‘Oh Mary!’ With Maya Rudolph

Fresh off her historic induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Taylor Swift was back in midtown Manhattan this weekend to see one of the hottest tickets on Broadway, Oh, Mary! with Maya Rudolph, with Travis Kelce by her side. They caught the play just in time to see Rudolph starring as Mary Todd Lincoln, as the SNL alum’s limited run in the show wraps July 5.

The pair posed backstage for photos with the cast of Oh, Mary!, including Rudolph, while attending a matinee performance at the Lyceum Theater in New York City on Saturday (June 13). A clip taken at curtain call by a fellow audience member shows a glimpse of Swift just a few rows back from the stage, leading a standing ovation for Saturday’s performers.

Oh, Mary! is a Tony Award-winning, comedic “one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln, through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola),” the production’s official synopsis says. Rudolph currently portrays the “miserable, suffocated” first lady “in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in this 80-minute one-act play.” The play’s plot centers on Mary Todd’s unhappiness with her marriage to the then-U.S. president — a reimagining of the couple’s story that has President Lincoln closeted (though it’s a fictional story, some historians do believe he was queer), and Mary Todd drunk and dreaming of being a showgirl.

“This play is about a woman with a dream that no one around her understands,” Escola told NPR. “A dream that the whole world is telling her is stupid and doesn’t make any sense.”

At this year’s Tony Awards, Escola — who not only wrote the book, but originated the lead role of Mary as its first performer — was named best leading actor in a play, while Oh, Mary! director Sam Pinkleton took home best direction of a play.

Following Rudolph, Megan Stalter is slated to take over the role of Mary next, for a 10-week stint beginning July 6.

Swift received her Songwriters Hall of Fame honor Thursday night (June 11) at a ceremony held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel. Sombr performed two Swift classics in tribute — “Cardigan” and “Dear John” — with the honoree and her parents softly singing along, from heir table in front of him. Steven Spielberg saluted Swift, who’s the youngest women ever inducted into the SHOF, by introducing her to the stage for her speech.

“If I look back at my entire 23-year career in music, the ups and downs and industry battles, the trials and tribulations, the cheers and tears and dogpiling of doubt, the criticisms — both fair and unfair — the complete loss of privacy, the world tours and ego wars, and the twists of fate, the absolute magical chaos of this path that I chose when I was too young to remember it even being a choice at all, songwriting was the easiest thing I ever did,” Swift said in her speech. “Not because it didn’t take effort. It definitely did. Not that it wasn’t frustrating at times, because it could be. And not that my songwriting didn’t haunt me relentlessly until I cracked the perfect internal rhyme scheme for the third line of the second verse before my teachers called me out in class for not paying attention, because that definitely happened.”

She continued, “But when I say that songwriting was the easiest part for me, I think what I mean is that it was instinctual. No one taught me how to do it. I had to be taught how to entertain a crowd. And learn choreography, and be less annoying and navigate the industry and fiercely protect my own sanity through difficult lessons and massive amounts of trial and error and chaos and calamity. But songwriting for me was pretty much the only thing I naturally did.”

Last week she unveiled an original song penned for Toy Story 5, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she debuted live on piano on Tuesday at the film’s world premiere. Swift also performed the Toy Story mainstay “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” as a duet with Randy Newman at the premiere.