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.
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.
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.
Notes for First Time Astronauts
A comic monologue warning of the perils of self-abuse in zero gravity conditions.
Saturday at the Commodore
A short solo play from the award-winning Scottish playwright, in which an Aberdonian woman remembers a painful teenage betrayal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unsuspecting Susan
A monologue play about a middle-aged woman whose adult son has converted to Islam.
Leavings
A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.
The Naked Eye
A short monologue play from the author of Jerusalem.
Duologue
Terence Rattigan's Duologue is a short monologue play for a female actor in which a woman reminisces movingly about her dead husband.
Spacewang
A monologue play in which a teenage girl roams the streets of Withernsea in search of aliens.
The Waiting List
A blackly comic monologue about a man under siege in the community where he grew up.
I Won't Dance - Don't Ask Me
An early short monologue play from Northern Irish writer Owen McCafferty.