Jane Krakowski Walks Through Her Iconic Broadway Resume, From Oh, Mary! to Her Tony-Winning Role in Nine

Theatergoers can catch Jane Krakowski starring in one of the biggest hits on Broadway right now, Oh, Mary! as Mary Todd Lincoln. She recently extended her limited run through January 4, 2026. "I've loved the show from the minute I saw it downtown," the Tony winner tells Broadway.com. "And secretly, I'm going to admit, while I was watching it for the first time [with Cole Escola] up there I was like, 'Hmm… That's a great part.'"

Of course, this is far from the first great part for the actress and singer, who has been dazzling live audiences with her signature charm since before she could legally drink. Almost two decades prior to bringing Jenna Maroney to life on 30 Rock, Krakowski made her Broadway debut at 17 years old as Dinah the Dining Car in the 1987 production of Starlight Express. "I don't think I knew exactly what to expect," she says of originating the role. "I had the moxie to jump in, and I think that's why I got cast."

She appeared in four more musicals before landing the television role of Elaine Vassal on Aly McBeal: Grand Hotel as Flaemmchen, the first Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company as April, Tartuffe Born Again as Mariane and Once Upon a Mattress as Lady Larken.

"I think of all of these days as really happy times. Loving the discipline of it, loving the eight shows a week, loving being a part of the community, loving being exhausted but then somehow at places this new energy comes through," she reflects. "And I'm hoping that still happens over at Oh, Mary! I think it will."

In 2003, Krakowski won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical as Carla in the Broadway revival of Nine at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre (now home to Book of Mormon). "I came down from the sky—the heavens—in a sheet," she recalls of her entrance as the mistress to filmmaker Guido Contini, played by Antonio Banderas. "Every woman's secret wish," she jokes. But in all seriousness, she says, "it gave me shivers and the tingles that you want to have of theater magic from the minute I heard about it. So the fact that we were able to actually make it happen on a Broadway stage, it felt meant to be."

Krakowski took on the "delicious" role of Ilona Ritter in the 2016 revival of She Loves Me at Studio 54, a production that she looks back on as "one of my favorite things I've been a part of. Getting to work with Gavin [Creel] is one of the greatest experiences I've had. Creating that number together with Warren Carlyle and Gavin and myself, making it our own, was one of those creative few days in the rehearsal hall that you remember forever."

"I jumped into a split that day as a joke, just to make everybody laugh," she recalls of choreography that made it into the show. "That's the first thing Gavin said to me, the sweetest man in the world. He said, 'Are you sure you want to do that eight times a week?' And I heard the applause in my head and said, 'Yes!'"

Speed-walking through Times Square in a sequin mini skirt, Krakowski regales Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek with more gems like these in the video below. Watch the extra-special edition of Walking Through My Resume to see Krakowski visit all of her old haunts, ending at the Lyceum Theatre where she dons the bratty curls eight shows a week in her eighth Broadway production.

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