My conversation with Rosie O’Donnell begins with a question — not from me, even though she’s the subject here. Chatting over Zoom, the former talk-show host immediately asked if I was at home. “I’m actually in my office in Midtown,” I replied. “The ‘Death of a Salesman’ marquee is in the window right over my shoulder.” O’Donnell nodded knowingly. “There ya go,” she said with a grin. “Unbelievable. It was so moving and so gut-wrenching. I remember seeing Brian Dennehy and thinking no one could ever do that, and Nathan [Lane as Willy] brought a whole new way to look at that character. All the four leads were unbelievable.”
Though she now lives in Ireland, O’Donnell’s theater cred remains strong and runs deep. She is ever the New Yorker and forever a champion of theater and Broadway.
Growing up on Long Island, O’Donnell would train into the city to see Broadway shows from the time she was a preteen. She went on to become a star in her own right: first as a comedian discovered on “Star Search,” then as an actor in movies like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “A League of Their Own” and on Broadway in “Grease,” “Seussical” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” O’Donnell reached a new strata as the six-time Emmy Award-winning host of the five-time Emmy-winning talk show “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.” While redefining the daytime talk show space, O’Donnell hosted the Tony Awards three times — in 1997, 1998 and 2000 — and produced the musical “Taboo” in 2003. She earned the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award in 2014.
Over the six seasons it aired, “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” provided a national platform for Broadway, interviewing theater actors and showcasing performances from Main Stem shows. O’Donnell wanted everyone to know about the shows she loved, the performances that moved her and the actors she worshipped. But while she is often a vehicle of celebration for other artists, O’Donnell is still an artist in her own right. Her new solo play, “Common Knowledge,” which debuted at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is now coming to New York for a limited engagement at the Daryl Roth Theater (though O’Donnell hinted the show could end up in a bigger venue).
O’Donnell said “Common Knowledge” is her answer to the questions “How did I become who I am and why?”
“It starts with my mother’s death and it ends with the last time I saw her,” O’Donnell explained. “The in-between is my mothering [of my kids] and trying to figure out how to do that without having a mother.” One of five kids herself, O’Donnell lost her mother when she was 10 and would go on to have five children of her own.
Given her background as an ambassador of Broadway and her current zoomed-out perspective on America and its cultural impact, O’Donnell and I chatted about her history with Broadway, her ideas for reinvigorating its place in the national conversation and the multiple avenues for a potential return to the glittering gulch.
