Going Solo: One-Act Plays for One Actor

by Andrew Biss

The six one-person plays included in this collection are ideal for actors looking to showcase their talents at solo performance theatre festivals, whose popularity has grown exponentially in recent years. Poignant, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes heart-warming and frequently witty, each piece allows the actor to explore a multifaceted, well-rounded character that will demonstrate their skills at their finest and fullest. They say never judge a book by its cover but it's something many of us are apt to do at some point. Judging a person by their appearance is equally unwise, as none of us can know the personal turmoil behind the public façade of a perfect stranger. But what if we could? Juxtaposing the public face with the private, conflicted person behind it, these solo plays present an actor with the opportunity to truly immerse themselves in the mind of the character they’re portraying. The plays included Big An overweight young woman named Peggy appraises her recently purchased self-help book, “The Bigger the Better.” A Small Act of Malcolm, a gentle, middle-aged soul with a troubled mind, keeps his mother's remains sealed in a small porcelain box. What he keeps hidden among his memories, however, isn't so easily contained. The An abused wife reflects on her past and deconstructs the emergence of the replica that now haunts her present. One Night Denny, a prisoner on death row in a State Penitentiary spends his final moments reviewing his career as a serial killer in an interview with himself. Organ A woman in the viewing room of a funeral home addresses the body in the coffin before her. Eileen, a reclusive, middle-aged divorcee, still haunted by the loss of her son, discovers a new life in the virtual world. Each play has a running time of between 15 and 20 minutes, with the exception of Organ Failure, which has a running time of approximately 5 minutes.

55 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 14, 2017

About the author

The works of award-winning author and playwright Andrew Biss have been produced in New York, London, Los Angeles, and many other cities across North America and Europe. His plays have won awards on both coasts of the U.S., critical acclaim in the U.K., and are an Off-Off-Broadway mainstay.

He is published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., Meriwether Publishing Ltd., and JAC Publishing & Promotions.

He is a graduate of the University of the Arts London, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.