Cole Escola is honoring a Broadway icon through their style.
At the 2025 Tony Awards in New York City on Sunday, June 8, the Oh, Mary! star appeared in a silvery-blue gown inspired by Bernadette Peters’ look at the 1999 ceremony, where she took home the award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for Annie Get Your Gun.
“It’s my favorite blue, I call it Cinderella blue,” Escola told PEOPLE on the red carpet. The star also pointed out that their pendant necklace features famed British actress Laura Keene, who starred in the play Our American Cousin, which was attended by President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington on the evening of his assassination.
Escola’s custom Wiederhoeft creation features a lace-up corset in pale blue taffeta with draping at the chest and hips and hand-embroidered metallic blue glass beads. The skirt, embroidered in the same glass beads, has an ornamental door motif cascading down the entire front in silver glass beads, faceted crystals and tarnished metal sequins, which a press release states is “a nod to Bernadette’s medals and the significance of the passage of time.”
The skirt’s voluminous train is made of light blue taffeta.
In further homage to Peters, Escola, 38, sported a reddish-brown curly wig inspired by the star’s signature look.
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“Initially speaking about this look with David and Cole, we were really inspired by Bernadette Peters’ look from the 1999 Tony Awards,” Jackson Wiederhoeft shared via press release. “We were all obsessed with the color and the medals on the front, a sense of fake naiveté.”
The designer continued, “We found ourselves inspired by additional themes of faded crypticism, false innocence, fightfulness, womanly age-hold historically feminine garments, queenly status and ancient doors.
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Escola is nominated Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a play for their work in Oh, Mary!, the hit Broadway comedy of which Escola is also the playwright. Cynthia Erivo will host the awards ceremony.
After relinquishing the titular role of Mary Todd to Betty Gilpin and Tituss Burgess, Escola returned to the role on Tuesday, April 8. That day also marked a homecoming for original cast members Conrad Ricamora (‘Mary’s Husband’) and James Scully (‘Mary’s Teacher’)
Emilio Madrid
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This reunited the entire original Broadway cast. Bianca Leigh (‘Mary’s Chaperone’) and Tony Macht (‘Mary’s Husband’s Assistant’) have remained in the absurdist comedy since it premiered at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City in June 2024.
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The play hit Broadway after an Off-Broadway run last February that earned Escola a slew of trophies, including the Obie, Drama Desk, Theatre World and Outer Critics Circle awards.
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