Meg Stalter made her Broadway debut in Oh, Mary! on July 6. A week later, she has not been back on stage, and she wants the public to know exactly why.
Stalter posted on Instagram to address the situation directly. "I'm so sad to have missed @ohmaryplay shows this week as I'm very very sick with bronchitis," she wrote. "We are hoping not pneumonia!"
In her absence, Hannah Solow has been performing the role of Mary Todd Lincoln and Jackie Sanders has stepped in as Mary's Chaperone. Stalter praised both performers in her post, calling them "incredible" and the "world's most talented," and adding they "stepped in to give you the BEST SHOW!!"
Stalter also used the post to push back against a specific online rumor. A Reddit thread had circulated claiming she was seen at the Comedy Cellar, a comedy club in New York City, while supposedly too sick to perform.
"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," she wrote. "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."
She accompanied her post with photos of herself recovering and added in a reply to her own post: "Drinking Pedialyte and on a lot of medication in this pic."
Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy written by Cole Escola and directed by Sam Pinkleton. The play is set in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln's assassination and reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a hard-drinking woman who wants to become a cabaret star. Stalter is scheduled to continue performing in the production through September 12 at the Lyceum Theatre.