TEMPORARY ORDER DELAYS

We’re currently experiencing temporary disruption to the availability of some titles as we move all of our books to a new warehouse, which means it may take longer than normal for your order to reach you. Click here for more information.

Plays for One Performer

Discover fringe-theatre shows turned award-winning TV series, memoir-monologues, writer-actor collaborations and so many more excellent examples of solo shows in our collection below.

If you're a theatre-maker interested in creating your own solo show, there's no better place to start than with Making Your Solo Show: The Compact Guide, by Lisa Carroll and Milly Thomas – both experienced solo-show writers, who teach popular workshops on getting to grips with the form.

Discover 10 top tips to make your solo show memorable, an extract from Lisa and Milly's book over on our blog.

Showing 1-18 of 143 items.

Limbo

A monologue play in which a 17-year-old girl tells us the story of her relationship with an older man and what it led to.

Published in volume St Petersburg and other plays

    About a Goth

    A short play about a young man who volunteers in old people's homes, and suffers paroxyms of love and hate for the residents.

    Published in volume Me, As A Penguin

      Notes for First Time Astronauts

      A comic monologue warning of the perils of self-abuse in zero gravity conditions.

      Published in volume Me, As A Penguin

        Saturday at the Commodore

        A short solo play from the award-winning Scottish playwright, in which an Aberdonian woman remembers a painful teenage betrayal.

        Published in volume Scot-Free

          A Night in November

          The multi-award-winning playwright explores the subjects of football and sectarianism, set during the 1994 World Cup.

            misterman (2001 edition)

            A strange and haunting monologue from the acclaimed Irish playwright.

              Mongoose

              A strange and beguiling monologue about a loner obsessed with a malign companion called Mongoose.

              Published in volume Singular Male Voices

                Cold Comfort

                A powerful monologue about an Irish labourer living in London who returns home to Belfast to have a last, drunken 'conversation' with his recently dead father.

                Published in volume Singular Male Voices

                  Brazil

                  A blistering monologue set in Scotland in the near future, when Europe is at war with America, and Scotland suffers collateral damage in the clash of civilisations.

                  Published in volume Singular Male Voices

                    Jordan

                    A short play that tells the true story of Shirley Jones, who kills her baby boy, Jordan, rather than have him taken away by his abusive father.

                    Published in volume Singular Female Voices

                      The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

                      The alternating stories of two women (played by the same actress), both of whom 'lose' their sons - one murdered, the other a runaway.

                      Published in volume Singular Female Voices

                        Unsuspecting Susan

                        A monologue play about a middle-aged woman whose adult son has converted to Islam.

                        Published in volume Singular Female Voices

                          Leavings

                          A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.

                          Published in volume Jez Butterworth Plays: One

                            The Naked Eye

                            A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.

                            Published in volume Jez Butterworth Plays: One

                              Duologue

                              Terence Rattigan's Duologue is a short monologue play for a female actor in which a woman reminisces movingly about her dead husband.

                              Published in volume Who is Sylvia? and Duologue

                                Spacewang

                                A monologue play in which a teenage girl roams the streets of Withernsea in search of aliens.

                                Published in volume The Kitchen Sink

                                  The Waiting List

                                  A blackly comic monologue about a man under siege in the community where he grew up.

                                  Published in volume Mojo Mickybo: Three Plays

                                    I Won't Dance - Don't Ask Me

                                    An early short monologue play from Northern Irish writer Owen McCafferty.

                                    Published in volume Mojo Mickybo: Three Plays