Rosie O’Donnell Joins The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway After Successful Gig Guest-Hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live

Rosie O’Donnell is joining “The Rocky Horror Show.”

via: EW

Playbill announced on Wednesday that for a nearly two-week stint next month, O’Donnell will play the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway. Tony nominee Rachel Dratch, who has been playing the role since the show kicked off previews in March, will be taking a brief hiatus from the stage. O’Donnell will take over on Oct. 6 with Dratch returning on Oct. 20.

“Could not be more thrilled #broadway is the place show biz lives up to its dream - can’t wait to be there !!!” O’Donnell captioned an Instagram post on Wednesday, sharing the news with her followers.

O’Donnell’s Rocky Horror Show role will kick off two months after she completed a limited run of her one-woman show, Common Knowledge. The retired talk show host’s production took the stage at The Daryl Roth Theatre in New York City, from July 22 to Aug. 8.

The A League of Their Own star, who famously moved from the United States to Ireland in January 2025, discussed her “glorious and overwhelming” return to New York in an interview published this summer.

“New Yorkers are very bold and forthright and they tell you to your face what they think. That’s why I do that—I lived my whole life here and I’m a New Yorker through and through,” O’Donnell told Broadway Direct at the time. “There’s a bluntness to us that some people find obnoxious and others find refreshing. When I got here, I stopped at the first bagel store I saw and got a bagel, and then I got a hot dog on the street, and was very happy about both.”

This is hardly the three-time Tony Award winner’s first foray into musical theater. O’Donnell made her Broadway debut in 1994, when she originated the role of Betty Rizzo in Grease, and occasionally returned to the Great White Way through the early 2000s, serving as a replacement for The Cat in the Hat in Seussical and Golde in Fiddler On the Roof.

O’Donnell’s Rocky Horror Show appearance also comes after she guest-hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live for four nights last month, nearly 25 years after The Rosie O’Donnell Show went off the air. Her brief late night stint received rave reviews, even from guest Shawn Hatosy.

“I think back to when I moved to New York in 1996, you had just started your show. I used to watch that show,” The Pitt star said during the Aug. 21 episode. “It was amazing. If you don’t mind me saying, it is really nice to have you back here.”

O’Donnell is set to appear as the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show from Oct. 6 to Oct. 18.