Donald Trump gets such intensive daily coverage of his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination that including him as a character in a contemporary play or musical could be seen as a playwright’s opportunistic ploy for media attention.

Not this time, says Honolulu playwright/author Marcia Zina Mager. She and co-writer Lucie Lynch imagined “a chorus line of Donald Trumps” cavorting in their two-woman production, “Money Talks: But What the Hell Is It Saying?” more than a year before The Donald announced that he would run for president.

“We had Donald Trump from the beginning,” said Mager, 61. “The show is not a political show by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a very personal exploration of our own struggles with money, success and self-worth. Imagine an inspirational talk meets Broadway musical — that’s it.

“We chose Donald Trump back then because he really represents wealth, and also he’s quite a character with his hair and everything. He’s the iconic face attached to this idea of a ridiculous amount of money.”

Mager and Lynch, 38, presented “Money Talks” for the first time at the 2015 Oahu Fringe Festival in February last year. Since then they have continued to work on it. They’re presenting the latest version today through Tuesday at the Kumu Kahua Theatre on Merchant Street.

“The show is really an intimate conversation that we have with the audience as ourselves,” Mager explained. “We’re not playing characters, and we really talk about this issue of money and struggling with money as artists. Then we go in and out of this Broadway musical that we’ve been writing for the last two years.”

This musical within a musical is about money, wealth and power that the women call “KaCHING.” The first big song-and-dance number has a chorus line of four Donald Trumps — animated by Mager and Lynch — singing a song that Trump himself might have written if he had the time and inclination: “Money Is the Answer to Everything.”

Mager and Lynch hope to expand “KaCHING” into a finished production they can take to New York someday. For now, Mager says, “Money Talks” allows them to “workshop” their ideas for “KaCHING” while they share their hard-earned lessons about life, money and self-esteem.

“We decided instead of wallowing in all our crap about money and self-worth and success and failure, to channel it and do something creative and write the story of our struggle, not only with success and money, but also our struggle writing a Broadway show,” Mager said.

Mager and Lynch have written a self-help book, “What’s My Worth? Discovering the Priceless Treasure of You,” which is available at their show.

“Our real real desire,” Mager said, “is that people leave the show and they really ponder: ‘Am I my bank account?’”