INTERVIEW: Caragh Donley brings ‘He Said, She Says’ to NYC Fringe
Photo: He Said, She Says is written and performed by Caragh Donley. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by The Press Room with permission.
Caragh Donley has a story to tell — her own.
The well-known senior producer for The Kelly Clarkson Show will soon star in her own solo piece, called He Said, She Says, at the New York City Fringe Festival, with performances running April 5-19 at wild project. The work, directed by Robert Galinsky and featuring original music by Heart’s Nancy Wilson, is a first-person testimonial of Donley’s life as a trans woman and her thoughts on topics like identity, transformation and the resilience of the human spirit, according to press notes.
“The real genesis probably goes back to when I was 6 and realized I was different from the other kids,” Donley said in a recent phone interview after wrapping for the day from The Kelly Clarkson Show. “That’s when I used to have these recurring dreams that Tabitha from Bewitched would knock on the front door, ask if I wanted to play. I would say, ‘Yes.’ She would have me drink this little cup of tapioca pudding. I would become a girl, and then we could play. So it’s been germinating since then. I transitioned not quite two years ago, still easing into the two-year anniversary, and as I moved to New York and kept working for Kelly, I just wanted to do something more to not so much share my story but share a story that hopefully other trans people and cis people can relate to somehow.”
Donley has been recognized for her work on The Kelly Clarkson Show with four Emmy Awards, and she’s also worked for various other TV projects over the years, including VH1’s Behind the Music, The Queen Latifah Show and The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn. Her books include You Live, You Learn: The Alanis Morissette Story and The Can’t-idates: Running for President When Nobody Knows Your Name, plus I’m Screaming As Fast As I Can: My Life in B-Movies, co-written with cult icon Linnea Quigley.
But working on these TV shows and writing these books was not as personal as making He Said, She Says, which is all about Donley’s life.
“What I found in my vast two years of trans experience is that the gigantic proportion of American citizens have never met a transitioned trans person, and they don’t hate us,” she said. “They just believe what they hear, so they don’t know what to think. My entire goal is to show who I am and what my journey was and how my life is now and have people go, ‘Oh, so what were we so afraid of? That old lady? That forgotten fifth golden girl? That’s what we’re afraid of?’ That is literally what drives me. I would love to be known as America’s friendly neighborhood trans lady at some point. That’s it. I have one goal in life. Well, two, but I’m not going to tell you the other one yet.”
The show has humorous moments, which is a type of storytelling that Donley considers a strength, but it also ventures into more serious topics as well. Some spoiler alerts ahead: Donley cries in the piece, and it’s not the result of some planned stagecraft.
“I genuinely cry,” Donley said. “I am not an actor in any sense whatsoever. Yeah, I’m dealing with telling my mom and watching her die and dealing with the fear that comes with being trans. There’s a moment at the end. … It’s basically just me talking to my old self, who will just be a voice that I hear, and I speak to my old dude self. That’s what unfolds, and at the end, old me reminds new me that he wrote me a letter the night before I had my facial feminization surgery. That guy who I don’t think of as me wrote Caragh a letter saying, ‘I hope this works out, and please do all these things you want to do,’ and I do read that at the end, my actual letter. And that kind of makes me cry every time because it’s just weird to think of where I was and where I am. But comedy is a little easier for me, so, yes, I do compare being trans to bitcoin at one point.”
The New York City Fringe Festival performances, which are scattered over the next two weeks, will be the first time that He Said, She Says is performed in front of a live crowd. That stated, this story has been in Donley’s mind for years.
“I’ve performed it many, many, many times over many decades in my head, if that counts, because I’ve got a lot of personalities up there, so it’s like a different audience every day,” she said. “I have a director, Robert Galinsky, who is a part of this, and we have worked on it. I think the first writing was in January of 2024, and after about six months, we did a lot of table reads to get reactions from people. I feel like we did that 6-7 times through the back half of 2024, but this will be the first time on a stage, me walking around in heels in front of strangers. Except for when I was third reindeer from the left in a Christmas pageant in the 10th grade, I’ve not really been on stage, so there you go.”
Donley added: “I’m looking forward to trying it because it seems like a good challenge to be up on a stage and telling my story with the support of friends. Nancy Wilson from Heart is a friend of mine, and she wrote some music for it. So if anyone is a Heart fan, come out and hear new music, if nothing else. My job as a segment producer here at Kelly brings me into contact with actors pretty much every day, and I’ve been trying to absorb their advice as well. So hopefully it pays off.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
He Said, She Says, written and performed by Caragh Donley, plays April 5-19 at wild project as part of the New York City Fringe Festival. Click here for more information and tickets.
