On Broadway, the stage is typically filled with people, all coming together to bring a show to life. However, some of the most riveting productions have come from a single performer. From Elaine Stritch at Liberty to Sea Wall/A Life, look back at 13 socially distance performances that took Broadway by storm—including Song and Dance, with Bernadette Peters earning a Tony Award for her solo Act I performance as Emma.
The Belle of Amherst Playbill - April 1976
Starring Julie Harris, William Luce's play tells the story of Emily Dickinson, the legendary poet who lived a reclusive existence at her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, during the Victorian era.
Friedman-Abeles/©NYPL for the Performing Arts
Song and Dance Playbill - Oct 1985
The first act of Song & Dance is one of the few true solo musicals ever to play Broadway. Bernadette Peters won her first Tony Award in 1985 for her portrayal of Emma, an English girl in New York, whose search for love spanned almost two dozen songs.
Kenn Duncan / The New York Public Library
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, 1985
In The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Lily Tomlin played multiple roles in Jane Wagner's one-woman play, a comedic look at and critique of contemporary American society.
Martha Swope / The New York Public Library
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, 1994
Anna Deavere Smith examines the aftermath of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in this one-woman show in which she impersonates many of the people she interviewed about the event.
Freak Playbill - Opening Night
Actor John Leguizamo introduced Broadway audiences to his explosive storytelling style in 1998 when Freak, a semi-autobiographical series of Leguizamo's family stories co-written with David Bar Katz, opened at the Cort Theatre.
Photo by Photo by Joan Marcus
Via Dolorosa,1999
Lauded British playwright David Hare made his performing debut in this autobiographical docu-monologue about his 1997 travels through the Middle East.
Elaine Stritch at Liberty Playbill - Opening Night
Elaine Stritch in At Liberty
Mike Birbiglia's The New One Playbill - Opening Night
Mike Birbiglia
Joan Marcus
I Am My Own Wife Playbill - Opening Night, Nov 2003
Starring Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays, Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize–winning play tells the story of East German Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who operated an antiques business for years despite the encroaching dangers of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Joan Marcus
Whoopi, 2004
Twenty years after making her Broadway debut with this one-woman show, Whoopi Goldberg played a return engagement of this evening of comic monologues from various characters, from a nine-year-old girl to an elderly man to a valley girl.
Joan Marcus
Sea Wall/A Life Playbill - Opening Night
Tom Sturridge
Richard Hubert Smith
Sea Wall/A Life Playbill - Opening Night
Jake Gyllenhaal
Richard Hubert Smith
My Name Is Lucy Barton Playbill - Opening Night
Laura Linney in My Name Is Lucy Barton
Matthew Murphy
