We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelly McCaughan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

A big risk that I have taken personally, professionally, and artistically was when I took my one-woman show — which I wrote, produced, and starred in — to the largest arts festival in the world: the Edinburgh Fringe. The idea of Edinburgh first started when my professor in undergrad mentioned it during one of our classes. He told us about his experience at the Fringe and romanticized it in a way that was very enticing. He had performed there himself, and I knew that I would eventually want to take my own work there someday.

After graduating, I made my way into the “real world” for the first time with a BA in theater, feeling really overwhelmed. I didn’t know which city I belonged in, where I wanted to start, or even exactly what kind of work I wanted to be doing. I ended up going to Philadelphia on a whim because a few friends of mine had moved there for the up-and-coming theater scene, and we had a few connections and people we could latch onto for help and guidance. Philadelphia was never on my radar, but I took a chance on it. I quickly realized that it had a pretty unique scene for devised theater and creating your own work — something I had always wanted to do.

After a few years in the city, feeling bored and restless with the traditional theater scene and the audition hustle, I decided it was time to attempt to write my own work. I knew I wanted to write about something I knew a lot about and felt strongly about, and that I wanted it to have a healthy mix of humor and heart. I landed on writing about my experience in the Catholic Church and wanted to use the art of clown and bouffon to tell the story. I started writing, and it came pouring out of me. I wrote draft after draft and did my first performance of it in my apartment for 14 people during a festival called Solofest.

After the first iteration, I edited and rewrote the show, performing it more often and at bigger venues, eventually selling out a few shows in Philadelphia. I knew I wanted to take the show on tour somehow — and then the pandemic hit. I ended up taking about three years away from the show. Once things felt “safe” again, I decided it was time to skip the mini-festivals and go straight to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Once the show was where I wanted it, I put out some feelers and started researching the daunting process that is the Edinburgh Fringe. If you don’t know, the Edinburgh Fringe is the Olympics for artists: it’s the largest arts festival in the world, with the highest ticket sales globally after the Olympics themselves. It’s a huge artistic accomplishment, and many artists have it on their bucket list. I ended up getting into a really great venue and took the plunge. I did a lot of research about the festival and educated myself as best as I could before going. I was self-producing for the biggest arts festival in the world, and it was the biggest undertaking of my life.

After months and months of preparation — marketing, raising funds, finding a place to stay, preparing the show, and setting up my plan of attack to make ticket sales — I finally made it to the 2023 Fringe. My main goal was to have fun and have no expectations other than to try my best to get butts in seats and have a blast. There is a lot of talk about how hard it is to get people to come to your show, and the average audience size tends to be about 6–10 people. I had accepted that and would have been happy with two people in my audience.

I worked very hard to sell my show on the street and used all of the marketing tools available to me via social media and more. The night of my first preview almost sold out, and I was shocked. I didn’t expect much from there and thought I had just had a lucky night. To my surprise, the show caught on, and I ended up having a sold-out run my first go at the Edinburgh Fringe — and I was nominated for Best Newcomer. It was a huge risk in every way, but it changed my life both personally and professionally.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Kelly McCaughan—an actor, writer, comedian, and licensed massage therapist. I’ve always been obsessed with performance. As a kid, I was constantly doing impressions and creating characters, which naturally led me to performing in every school play and musical I could find. That love for performance and transformation eventually led me to pursue a degree in theater.

After college, I moved to Philadelphia on a bit of a whim—some friends and I found a place together, and we knew a few folks in the local theater scene. Philly wasn’t originally on my radar, but it turned out to be the perfect fit. The city has a vibrant theater community with a blend of traditional plays and a strong experimental, devised theater scene. That duality allowed me to audition for theater while exploring original, unconventional work.

Over time, I realized I wanted to create something that was entirely mine—so I wrote a solo show called Catholic Guilt. It’s a bold, funny, and vulnerable piece that blends theater, clown, and stand-up, exploring my personal experiences growing up Catholic. To my surprise and delight, the show resonated deeply with audiences and quickly gained momentum. I took it from Philly to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023, where it sold out and earned me a nomination for Best Newcomer. I returned in 2024, sold out again, and was nominated for Best Show. After that, I was selected as a winner of the 2024 International Fringe Encore Series, which led to an Off-Broadway run at Soho Playhouse—where the show was extended due to popular demand. These experiences remain some of the proudest moments of my life.

Alongside my creative career, I also work as a licensed massage therapist. I knew I needed a survival job that would support me financially and energetically without draining my creativity, and massage therapy became a natural choice. I trained in a 650-hour program to get licensed in Pennsylvania and now provide therapeutic bodywork that supports people’s health and well-being. It allows me to offer healing in a very different—but deeply fulfilling—way.

Whether I’m on stage or at the massage table, my work is about connection, catharsis, and care. I specialize in creating experiences that are honest, impactful, human, and hilarious. I love helping people feel seen—whether through laughter or through physical healing and relaxation. What sets me apart is my ability to blend heart and humor, rigor and play, art and service.

If there’s one thing I’d want potential clients, followers, or fans to know, it’s this: I care deeply about everything I do. I create work that sticks with you. I strive to tell stories that heal in some way. And I can’t wait to birth my next art fart into the world.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Something I had to unlearn is that you have to pick one thing to do as a creative and stick with it in order to make money from it. I’ve learned by experience that you can be interested in and really good at multiple mediums and genres and you can make a living by doing multiple creative things. When I was in my undergrad for theater our professors would encourage us to figure out where we think we fit in as an artist and performer and to stick with that ‘brand’. I remember feeling that I was good at multiple things and also really interested in multiple things as a creative/artist. It wasn’t until a few years after I graduated that I realized I could do ‘it all’. I very much wanted to create my own work, audition for theater, devise original work with collaborators, do comedy, and produce. I’ve managed to do all of these things in my career so far and make money doing it. We should not limit ourselves as creatives because we’ve been told that we’re only really good at one thing or only seen as one way. We are always growing and evolving as people and artists and we have to be open to new interests and believe in ourselves enough to take risks and try things that might scare us.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

As much as I hate to say this, I wish that I (and we) were taught the business aspect of being an artist early on: how to market our work, how to fundraise, how to network, how to ‘brand’ ourselves (I use that term lightly), how to create websites, how to create partnerships, how to sell tickets. At the end of the day, it is a business and artists are often taught their craft but are left without knowing the reality of what it takes to get their work known outside of auditioning and collaborating with other artists. We need more knowledge and education surrounding the business of being a creative!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kelly-mccaughan.com
• Instagram: @kelly__mccaughan
• Facebook: Kelly McCaughan
• Twitter: Kelly McCaughan

Image Credits

Bob Sweeney
Dave Sarrafian