Rosie O'Donnell Discusses Her New Off-Broadway Show Common Knowledge

Rosie O’Donnell has spent decades championing the theater community, from turning The Rosie O’Donnell Show into must-watch television for Broadway fans to stepping onto the stage herself in everything from Grease to Fiddler on the Roof.

Now, she’s returning to the New York stagewith something far more personal. Common Knowledge, her autobiographical solo show, arrives at the Daryl Roth Theatre for a limited engagement July 22-August 8 after sold-out runs across Europe, weaving together stories about family, grief, parenthood, and the decision to leave the United States following the 2024 election.

Equal parts funny and emotional, the show reflects on O’Donnell’s late mother, her relationship with her youngest child, Clay, and the perspective she found after relocating to Ireland. Ahead of the show’s New York run, O’Donnell spoke with TheaterMania about the deeply personal journey behind Common Knowledge and why Broadway remains her favorite place to be.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What inspired you to start developing Common Knowledge?
When I moved to Ireland, right before the inauguration of Trump the second time, I knew I would be lonely, because I didn’t know anyone in the country besides two of my cousins who live in Northern Ireland. As I was walking around the streets, I noticed all these people who looked like my family members. They all looked Irish, with the big, Irish head and the dark hair and the stocky bodies. I would be looking at a 90-year-old woman in the supermarket and going “God, if my mom had lived, this is what she would be looking like.” It was very overwhelming; I was forced to face my family in a way that I never had in the United States.

I tried to write a show about my mom 10 years ago with Dick Scanlan and I could never do it without crying. The thought of doing it over and over seemed undoable to me. It took all this time to get to a place where it wouldn’t be devastating. Although, when I first started doing it, I cried through some of the parts while saying it, and I’m like “This is not what an actress is supposed to do!” It was just so raw. I’ve been doing it now for over a year and a half and I can get through it without crying. Sometimes I tear up if I look in the audience and I see someone crying. That always makes me cry. But it’s been very fulfilling.

[It’s also about] Moving to Ireland and the reasons why. A large part of that has to do with my 13-year-old, non-binary, autistic child [Clay]. I read Project 2025 and thought, “If they even do a third of this, we’re doomed.” Sad to say, they’ve hit most of their checklists of destruction against the country. Now, the show is not really about Donald Trump. I have a piece about him that takes, out of a 75-minute show, about four minutes. It’s just to explain why I left and how I knew I had to protect myself.

How did Clay react to becoming a character in the show?
Well, it’s funny because when I would rehearse it, like, just to try to get the lines down, I would hear Clay in the other room going, “That’s not true! That’s an exaggeration.” They’re like, “I don’t like you telling stories about me to strangers.” I said, “Well, your siblings didn’t like it either, but they got used to it. This is how mommy makes money so we can live.”

I don’t talk about the challenges as much as some other people do, or the meltdowns, or the difficult parts of it, because that gets the most attention when people talk about autism. I wanted to bring a more humanistic approach. My approach, when I found out that they were autistic, was, let’s learn about this together, because you always have a choice in every major dilemma in your life, and that’s faith or fear. You can be afraid of what’s coming, or you can believe that it’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to. I decided rather than have all those fearful images, we were going to create our own.

I tell the story in the show. We went to a Mommy and Me class for neurodivergent kids, and Clay came over to me with a five-year-old boy who had Down syndrome and autism and was nonverbal. Clay said, “Mommy, this is my friend, Stephen. Stephen, this is my mommy.” And then Stephen babbled a little bit without forming a word. And Clay looked over and said, “I’m sorry, Stephen, but we don’t speak Spanish.”

Why do an off-Broadway run instead of coming to Broadway?
I wanted to see if it was possible that it could get a Broadway run. I called Daryl Roth and said, “Any way I could do it in your theater as a little toe in the water and then you can watch it and see…” I would love to be in the Helen Hayes or the Booth or something small and do it next summer, but we’ll see what happens. This is a short run of three weeks, with four shows a week.

What have you seen while you’ve been back in New York?
I went to see Cats: The Jellicle Ball. I thought it was so unbelievably brilliant to take the same clay and mold it into a different shape. That Rum Tum Tugger guy made me think twice about being gay. Pulling down his pants and letting us see his cute hiney? Oh, my God.

I saw Schmigadoon! and really enjoyed it. I saw Death of a Salesman, which was gut-wrenching and intense. I’m going to see Meg Stalter in Oh, Mary!

I saw the Les Mis arena tour in Ireland, and it was almost better than the regular Les Mis. The Irish guy who plays Jean Valjean, Killian Donnelly, he’s the best Jean Valjean I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen that show probably once a year since it came out. It’s my favorite show ever.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Rosie O’Donnell Show. Looking back, especially at the role the show played in championing Broadway, what does it mean to you that people still talk about it today?
It’s a wonderful feeling. I think it’s really touching. It’s so fun to be part of a community that I grew up wishing that I could be a part of. The fact that I’m not really a singer and not really a dancer never slowed me down because my love for it was so immense.

When my kids and I go out now, we go out pretty much unaccosted. People just say, “hi, Rosie,” But when I go to Broadway, my kids go, “I know why you come here.” I’m like, “I come here because I love Broadway.” They go, “no, you love all the people knowing you.” Maybe that’s true, too.