“It was in high school that the theater bug hit me,” says Miss Kitty. “I started as a singer before, and then, once I got to college, that’s when I really started getting into dance.” By the time she graduated from college, she notes with a flourish, “you could say [I] became a triple threat.”

The local performer’s potential to become a triple threat was intimated early on by key officials in the drama department of her alma mater, Catholic University.

“I remember auditioning for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance,” she says. “They called me back as Ruth, the nursemaid. Many of my classmates and my voice teacher questioned that, [but] I told them, ‘No, I’m actually quite elated that they would be willing to call me back to play a female part, because I would feel a lot more comfortable that way.”

She didn’t get that particular role, but the incident planted the seed that has eventually flowered into a budding career on local stages. By calling her back to audition for a female character, she reasons, “they saw something in me that they felt needed to come out.” Many years later, she did just that, and now identifies as “AMAB — that’s Assigned Male at Birth — nonbinary, queer, trans, femme.”

Miss Kitty says she always knew this about herself, even when she was in “kittenhood,” as the 41-year-old terms it. When it came time for a new name, inspiration struck from her childhood and earlier identity as a gay man weaned on divas.

“As you’re well aware, the gay boys always attach themselves to a particular diva in their youth — someone that they admire and they adore and they live for,” she says. “I definitely have my share of Black women who I appreciate and love dearly, but the one person I’ve always loved and adored and been drawn to is my beloved mother queen, Miss Eartha Kitt. May she rest in peace.”

After coming out as trans, Miss Kitty stopped performing. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to come back to it,” she says. “I got really into the drag community and [events like] Capital Pride, walking in the parade in an expression that fully resembles who I truly am.” As time went on, she realized she missed the theater. But she wasn’t certain that a return would work. “Would companies I’ve worked with before be willing to accept me?” she wondered.

She found work at “companies out there who were willing.” Three in particular have featured her in just the past two years, beginning with Spooky Action and its production of Agreste (Drylands). Danilo Gambini directed and translated the well-known Brazilian play for Spooky Action, which Miss Kitty describes as “a very ensemble-driven piece with four particular artists telling the story about what it’s like when a community turns on you just because you are in a relationship with a trans person.”

Her work in the trans-themed play garnered praise, including recognition by the Helen Hayes Awards with her first two nominations at last year’s ceremony: one as part of the cast for Outstanding Ensemble in a Play, the other as Outstanding Lead Performer in a Play. “I didn’t win,” she says, “but to be recognized for that, it was just the icing on the cake.”

Miss Kitty is nominated again at this year’s Helen Hayes, and again for her work as part of an ensemble — this time, the Folger Theatre production of Mary Zimmerman’s bold and shimmering Metamorphoses. It’s entirely plausible that she could make it three years in a row should Creative Cauldron amass nominations for its current production of Steel Magnolias, which features Miss Kitty as part of its ensemble.

Certainly, Creative Cauldron deserves commendation for its forward-thinking and inclusive approach to casting for the beloved show and also for standing out as an exemplary theater company more than willing to feature on its stage trans and nonbinary theater artists like Miss Kitty for non-queer-specific roles. In fact, it was Laura Connors Hull, the company’s founder and producing director, who specifically sought out Miss Kitty for the role of Truvy.

“She emailed me one day in 2024 saying [that] she really wanted me to audition for it,” Miss Kitty says. “At the first instant, I said yes, not knowing who she particularly wanted me to read for.” Hull suggested Truvy, the role immortalized by Dolly Parton in the 1989 blockbuster movie adaptation of Robert Harling’s play. “I was like, ‘Well, naturally, it’s a match made in heaven,'” she says with a chuckle.

“This show is definitely rooted in its ensemble [and] the connectivity between six fabulous Louisiana Southern ladies with their accents and their charm, their wit, and their snarkiness.”

The play’s female characters are portrayed as such at Creative Cauldron by a cast of five cis-gendered women plus Miss Kitty. A longtime fan of the movie, Miss Kitty “purposefully didn’t watch it” again in advance of the production. “You don’t want to be a carbon copy of it because that’s not acting, that’s just imitating.” Her original take on Truvy incorporates “my own mannerisms, my own uniqueness, nerve, and talent.”

From the start of rehearsals in January, the actors took inspiration from the play’s themes about the value of friendship and family, including chosen family, to form a closer bond than is the norm. “We’re a lovely, lovely group of femme-identifying artists,” she says. “We’ve kind of been embracing the element of family and togetherness. We really take care of each other, on stage and off. And that’s really the root of Steel Magnolias — being there for one another in sisterhood.”

The play could serve to inspire audiences in similar ways, “especially in these very, very trying times.” At the very least, Miss Kitty suggests it offers theatergoers much-needed entertainment and relief from Washington’s daily Trump-Musk demolition derby.

Miss Kitty sums up Steel Magnolias as a play that “makes you happy, makes you think, makes you cry, makes you love.”

There’s also its power in eliciting another emotion, particularly of the sort famously captured in one of Truvy’s signature catchphrases: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”

Steel Magnolias runs through Sunday, March 9, at Creative Cauldron’s newly-constructed venue at 127 E. Broad St. in Falls Church, Va. Tickets are $35 to $45, or $20 for students. Call 703-436-9948 or visit www.creativecauldron.org.