51�Թ�

Escola’s Mary Todd isn’t the American first lady that Julie Harris received a Tony Award for playing in “The Last of Mrs. Lincoln,” James Prideaux’s 1972 Broadway biodrama.

“I am human, even if I don’t look it,” Warhol says in the opening scene, getting right to the crux of biodrama and its perennial appeal to audiences: the sense that it gives us an intimate, up-close glimpse at a public figure’s private life, with its complex messiness and struggle, inspiration and joy.

McCarten, who made his Broadway debut this month as the book writer of “A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical,” knows the biodrama genre better than most.

‘Amadeus’ Live in Concert The music of Mozart will fill the air as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Pacific Chorale perform live-to-picture to accompany Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning 1984 biodrama about the 18th-century Austrian composer.

In the process, though, they miss some of the most exciting work — like Lydia R. Diamond’s baseball biodrama “Toni Stone,” a funny, poignant, enraging, uplifting story of passion and perseverance that opened to raves in June at Roundabout Theater Company but has gotten a bit lost in the fray.