So You Want To Do A Solo Show?

PART ONE

What’s Your Motivation?

Paucity of other employment is the most likely reason that you are thinking of a one-person show, but you don’t have to be desperate for work to want to launch your solo career. You may already have work that you don’t find totally fulfilling. To walk the tightrope of a solo show will offer you more stimulation, an opportunity to showcase your talents and prove that you can tackle greater challenges than you are currently being offered. Fortunate enough to be under long-term contract to a major subsidised company, on a commercial tour or in a successful West End run, you may be playing small parts or understudying. It’s understandable to feel yourself marginalised or unappreciated when your contribution seems a minor one, so trying out a solo piece can be good for your self esteem.

Whilst your self-advancement or self-improvement as a professional actor is probably why you are taking this route, you might have another more altruistic motive. Drawing attention to a cause, highlighting an injustice or celebrating a neglected life might be your inspiration, and your passion and commitment will be hugely to your advantage. But you have chosen to champion your cause through a piece of theatre, not a tract or a blog or a petition. Your sincerity and good intentions won’t let you off the hook where a paying audience’s expectations are concerned. Take a leaf from the BBC’s mission statement, which is to inform, to educate – and to entertain.

One among many

What used to be a small trickle of solo shows from what was considered a slightly eccentric cadre of actors is now a veritable flood. Yours will have to be pretty special if it’s to stay afloat. You will need to possess a degree of self-confidence somewhere beyond the courage that it takes to act at all. If going in front of an audience as a member of a cast exposes you and your talent, how much more vulnerable you are when the whole audience’s attention is focused on you for the entire length of the play. Belief in yourself, and equally in your material is crucial.

Before you start the process, it’s as well to confront the reality of working on stage alone. However many people are involved in getting your show on the road, it is you who will be up there speaking the first and last lines – and every line between. If something goes awry, only you can get yourself out of a tight spot. If the audience is inattentive, unappreciative, disrespectful or asleep, you have to address that situation without anyone to help you out, back you up or crack up with over a drink after the show. You are all the audience have to hold their interest, so there are no moments offstage, no gaps where you have time to refocus, recharge your batteries or even take a leak.

The relationship between the solo performer and his or her audience is unlike any other in the theatre. It is in effect a two-hander, with the audience as the other, silent player, and, whether it’s love or hate at first sight, it’s impossible to be indifferent to that single individual who is demanding all your attention. The number of actors who balk at the notion of performing a solo show is as nothing to the number of audience members who turn tail and run at the prospect of sitting through one. They have an aversion to the genre in the same way that some people can’t stand opera or Shakespeare on stage.

If showcasing your talent in the hope of generating other work is one of your aims, the depressing fact is that casting directors are unlikely to turn up. Since going to check out actors’ work is part of their brief, this reluctance may seem unreasonable, but the reality is that devoting an evening to just you will only tick one box. Going to see a full-cast show, or a student showcase, they will argue, is a much more cost-effective use of their time. Thinking of your solo show as a stepping stone to more and better work is, frankly, optimistic. It will demonstrate your resourcefulness and versatility, but these are not necessarily the qualities most employers are looking for in an actor.

You should ask yourself whether staging a show with you as the only focus of attention is a burning desire to tell a story, or an act of self-indulgence. We acknowledge that somewhere in an actor’s psyche is the need to be noticed, to be appreciated, to be loved. But however deserving you are, any hint of narcissism or neediness will immediately put a barrier between you and your audience. You have to earn their attention, their appreciation and their respect. In a pecking order of importance it should be the play, the audience and, finally, you.

Rules that will apply to your performance whatever its subject matter:

•  Distinguish between arrogance and total self-confidence on stage.

•  Be vocally assertive without hectoring.

•  Be self-deprecatory without sycophancy.

•  Use open body language.

•  Embrace the whole audience with your eyes.

•  Make your audience laugh.

•  Move your audience.

•  Inform your audience.

•  Surprise your audience.

•  Never insult your audience’s intelligence.

•  Never, ever, risk boring them.

What’s Your Inspiration?

Watching a fellow actor tackle a solo show may have sown the seed. You may have been inspired by the solo performances of some theatrical luminaries. Perhaps you saw Ian McKellen during the year of his life he devoted to Performing Shakespeare, Antony Sher in Primo, or Vanessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking. It is unlikely that any of the above did it because they needed the money (indeed, McKellen donated the proceeds from his marathon tour to AIDS charities). It’s doubtful too that they did it to improve their profile or because they were short of other offers. They did it out of their passion for the work, and that showed onstage.

You may already have some idea of what story you want to tell and how you want to tell it. Your first major decision, if your play isn’t already in the repertoire, will be whether to devise or write the script yourself or collaborate with a writer. If the subject matter is you, it is vital that the voice remains authentically your own. A good writer will know that instinctively. For other life stories or fictional narratives you will obviously want to work with a writer who is knowledgeable or at least engaged by the subject. And just as solo performing isn’t for everyone, not all playwrights are comfortable with writing monologues.

What’s Your Show?

Your show will come under one of the following ten categories:

1 A previously performed play

2 A play using your own life experiences

3 A play based on a real-life character or characters

4 A play based on a fictional life

5 A play revisiting a fictional creation

6 A play celebrating a literary life (by impersonation or in recital)

7 A play adapted from other media

8 A play for children

9 A play based on utilising a special skill

10 A play based on none of the above

1. A Previously Performed Play

This is the most straightforward choice: to reprise a performance of a play you have seen, or stage a published play that you have read. This frees you from many of the artistic dilemmas of more complex routes. If you don’t already have a copy of the script you have in mind, if it is out of print or not available from a bookshop, you can try and access it via internet sites or direct from the publisher. If the script has not been published you should contact and request a copy from the playwright’s agent.

If you have no definite play in mind you can search online for solo plays written by playwrights whose work you admire, the sites of play publishers or the sites of producing theatres that specialise in small-scale work or new writing. More adventurously, you could contact literary agents and investigate the availability of unpublished or even unperformed solo work. There may be a neglected gem by a writer who is as eager to be performed as you are to perform. Or a revival of a once-staged but now forgotten play could be good for you and the writer. If you are receptive to looking beyond the British repertoire then use the same resources to search out North American or Australasian plays, or European plays in translation.

An invaluable resource is the website Doollee.com which is a truly comprehensive guide to modern playwriting and English plays which have been written, adapted or translated into English since 1956. By clicking on the link to ‘Characters’ and specifying one male or one female actor, you will be bombarded with solo plays of every description with further links to the playwright, their known works and how to contact them.

Be sure, before you start learning the lines and rehearsing your curtain call, that the necessary rights to your chosen text are available, and that you can afford them. Another actor may have had the same idea and already taken an option on the performing rights, the playwright or his agent may not be prepared to release the rights to you, or the fees charged may be prohibitive.

Don’t capitulate at the first rebuff if you get a rejection because polite and persistent approaches sometimes pay off, but ultimately be prepared to accept rejection and look for another play.

Be realistic about casting. Just because you long to play a part doesn’t necessarily mean you should play it. Think hard about how suitable you are for the role. Canvass some opinions from friends and fellow professionals whom you trust and look out for the literal or metaphorical raised eyebrow.

CASE STUDY

Guy Masterson, The Boy’s Own Story

Guy Masterston’s name appears in this book more than once as, in one guise or another, he is responsible for more solo shows than anyone currently working in the UK.

His first foray was as an actor needing to generate his own work and searching around for a suitable scripted one-man vehicle. The Boy’s Own