How to Have a Bratty Curl Summer, According to the Wig Designer of ‘Oh Mary!’

When Leah J. Loukas, the storied wig designer behind countless Broadway productions, answers my Zoom call from her studio, it looks as if she’s sitting smack dab in the middle of a Sally’s Beauty Supply. There are bobby pins, pop clips, tiny plastic drawers of related bits and bobs, and what I first think is some piebald animal’s coat. But no, that’s just separate wefts of synthetic hair. Eventually, I spot the reason for why we’re talking, Cole Escola’s now-infamous wig from their record-breaking play, Oh, Mary!

The comedy, which premiered off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theater in February, is Escola’s take on the hidden life of Mary Todd Lincoln. Sequestered by her husband, the substance-driven, cabaret-aspiring First Lady devotes her days in the White House to drinking heavily, waxing demented about a career on the stage, and psychologically tormenting her escort and solitary friend, Louise. In June, Oh Mary! made it to Broadway and has since extended its run at the Lyceum Theatre until November. In the midst of a Brat summer, there’s just something about Mary. To borrow from Charli XCX: Mary IS brat, etc., etc.

Some will speculate it’s her wit. Others might say it’s her unabashed indulgence in immorality. If we’re going off Charli’s definition, Escola’s Mary is a woman who “feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of, like, parties through it. Is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile.” If you’ve seen the show, this descriptor is eerily accurate. During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, however, the playwright and performer explained what really makes Mary brat: her “bratty curl.”

When Loukas and I talk, Mary’s signature spirals are markedly missing. In fact, she’s actually looking rather sullen. But Loukas is starting to prepare Mary for another performance and is eager to explain how it’s done. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

JEZEBEL: First things first: What’s the Mary wig made of? Because it’s looking a lot like human hair up close…

Leah Loukas: Well, there’s been many phases of Mary. When we were off Broadway, we were experimenting, troubleshooting, just trying to come up with some things. The wigs that we were using were human hair, but we realized that the human hair wasn’t doing what we wanted it to do, and it also just didn’t maintain the same way. So, we were like, “OK, I think we need to do synthetic hair.” I had never really worked with synthetic hair so I asked, “What is this Halloween?” I get nervous because it ends up looking so flat and there are a lot of other concerns, but I ended up doing a fully hand-tied wig using five different colors.

So, Mary’s hair is fake but more importantly, she has highlights. Got it.

I learned to put in multiple colors so that whatever light it’s under, it always has some kind of dimension and the light doesn’t reflect off of it. You probably would never notice, but it has this reddish color in it [points to a weft of cherry cola red hair] and it’s mixed with this highlight color [points to a weft of lighter brown hair]. I don’t know how many wig designers you talk to, but this [points to the bags of synthetic hair in the background] is crazy…

https://t.co/LH3ffcpltk pic.twitter.com/osljg6PMCk

— OH, MARY! on Broadway (@ohmaryplay) July 3, 2024

You’re popping my wig maker cherry, actually. 

Oh my God. I feel so honored.

Anyone who’s seen the show knows it’s physically demanding for Cole. In every scene, they’re flinging their body this way and that way. How does that wig stay secure?

Cole doesn’t have very much hair and they’re doing acrobatics on stage, basically. For the wig to not come off, it had to be super, super lightweight, and fit really, really well. So, they put a nylon wig cap on first and then use the pop clips and put them through so they’re catching the wig cap and whatever hair is there. Wherever they can put the pop clips to feel secure, they do. The mic cord then feeds through and gets pinned on at the top, and then the wig goes on. On the inside, there’s like, a bra strap that’s been sewn into the wig and that’s the part that really hugs and can tighten underneath the neck.

When I’m building, once I get a mold of someone’s head, I then put that on a canvas block or a pre-made block and you stuff it out so that you have the exact measurements of their head. It’s all super fitted to the head. 

Does that still feel like a lot of faith in a strap and some clips?

I’ve had a wig come off maybe once or twice in my 20-year career and it’s…mortifying. But what’s great with Cole is they know what feels right and they’ve done the show long enough to really know if it’s on and what needs to happen.

Is the bun…separate?

I made a little cage for the bun, yeah. That’s what I need to do today is add the hair to it, but it’s actually hollow [unclips the bun from the wig to demonstrate]. You can see it weighs almost nothing and then just snaps on. That part sits right on the crown. That way, when they have to wash the wig or reset it, they can just take it off and snap it back into place.

How many Mary wigs are there? I imagine there’s more than one, right?

So, there are three total for the show. One is always being prepped and living in rollers, and another, obviously, is in play.

What’s the third?

It’s an extra if the wig needs to leave the building. So, if there’s a PR thing that comes up, or an event, or something. Cole is so genius and could hop into Mary at any moment. We just thought having an extra that’s not the stage wig makes sense.

So, Jimmy Fallon wore the PR wig then? 

No, that was actually the Mary wig.

That’s a distinct honor. Now, the style of Mary’s wig has evolved a bit. On the poster and in the initial promotional photos, it appears like it’s lacking the pigtails, some volume, and the infamous bratty curl. When did that shift occur and what was the inspiration?

Ultimately, we learned everything that we’ve done more recently off-Broadway. I think as that evolved, as Cole was wearing it, they saw what they liked, and didn’t like and what they wanted it to be. Usually, as a wig designer, your job is to not be seen, right? You don’t want people to go away and say, “Oh my gosh, the wigs…” A lot of times you’re trying to make something look so natural. But it’s really fun to be able to kind of lean into a character where the creator and the person wearing it is so willing to go for it.

The important thing for us was getting the bratty curls and figuring out the exact length that the hair needed to be cut to, where it needed to hit, and even the type of rollers we used. That’s been a journey. At one point, we were taping rollers together to get the long curl. Then, we were using flexirods. Now, everything’s set on the same size roller. Then, for the pigtails, a hairpin gets woven in to keep the shape. It actually gets fed into the ponytail and that’s what supports it. There are so many weird mechanics under there that you would never know just turn the focus to the bratty curl, but also to make sure the bratty curl isn’t too crazy and out of control. That’s the other thing about bratty curls…they’re very intentional. 

We looked at a lot of things of the period. We looked at Mary Todd Lincoln’s pictures, and then there was actually a picture that Cole sent me of one of the stepsisters in Cinderella. I mean, we don’t see anything historically that Mary may have had the bratty curls, but bratty curls did exist.

In this Brat summer, the girls need to know: What constitutes a bratty curl? 

I think it’s what you do with the curl. Did you ever hear that Mother Goose nursery rhyme? “There once was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.” It’s kind of the same vibe…having a defining characteristic and using it to its absolute fullest.