If you’ve lived in New York City long enough, you’ve encountered the aspiring actor. They may have a master’s degree from a prestigious institution or a parent’s high-limit credit card with free rein. Maybe they saved their restaurant tip money in a weathered envelope for a year, like I did, before packing up a U-Haul and driving across the country with little more than a dream.
A tragedy greater than Lear eventually falls upon most. By my math, using Actors’ Equity’s latest annual report, nearly half of members’ earnings come from Broadway production contracts, and the rest averages less than $6,000 per member for the year. Hoping a producer will revive or finance a production with the “perfect” role does little to feed the creative soul.
A certain kind of theatermaker, though, refuses to play by others’ rules. Authentic storytelling needs little more than someone with something to say and an audience that wants to hear it. Enter United Solo, billed as the world’s largest solo theater festival.
Returning for its 21st season this fall, the United Solo Theatre Festival presents over 50 performances from around the globe. This season’s lineup spans topics and styles, from personal adversity and political upheaval to reimagined classics (Goethe’s Faust, anyone?).
1 Minute Critic sat down with founder and artistic director Omar Sangare about the festival’s inspiration and how the art form can expand our ideas about live performance.
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From Warsaw to 42nd Street, one stage at a time
Sangare was born in Poland to a Polish mother and an African father. In a recent census, nearly 98% of Poland’s residents identified as ethnically Polish, and the country doesn’t track its population by race. Growing up there, Sangare discovered theater as a way to understand and explore different lived experiences.
After graduating from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, he studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, working with Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons, and others. But it was Sangare’s one-person show, True Theater Critic, that opened the door to worldwide opportunities and taught him as much about the business of theatermaking as about creating it.
After touring internationally, Sangare felt solo performance needed a spotlight in one of the world’s greatest theater cities: New York. An agreement with Theatre Row, a historic block of intimate theaters on 42nd Street, west of Broadway, followed. The call for entries drew a flood of applicants, with 47 productions mounted in its first season.
Now expanded to a biannual festival, United Solo has welcomed more than 2,000 productions, according to Sangare.
Nowhere to hide
Sangare’s take on solo performance comes with real-world experience.
“There’s no other actor you can hire behind and say, ‘Oh, I was wonderful, but you know the cast was…’ No, no, no. When you’re on stage, it’s up to you. Responsibilities are on your shoulders, and you must deliver,” Sangare tells 1 Minute Critic.
Likening it to preparing for the Olympics, he says, “You need to find self-discipline, follow the schedule you create for yourself, and finally get ready and face it: face the audience, your fear, stage fright, whatever you want to call it.”
This year’s lineup includes both newcomers and actors with Broadway credits, but the artistic challenge remains the same.
“When I teach students, one of my first classes is to let them know that I don’t believe in monologues,” says Sangare, a tenured professor in Williams College’s theater department. “Your action on stage, whether with actors, whether internal, whether with your audience, is a communication.”
Where the world comes to you
For theatergoers, solo performance offers a portal to a specific time and place.
“This is the easiest, most amazing way to travel around the world,” says Sangare. “You take your seat, and the world comes to you. You may see a show performed in French, or a production from Japan or Germany.”
But stories that hit close to home have also emerged, especially in an election year when tensions run high across the political spectrum. Sangare sees the theater as a space to explore such ideas in all their complexities.
“We’ve created a safe space for sharing ideas, beliefs related to the economy, politics, religion, and social journeys,” says Sangare, “where we can safely get together and learn about our differences and similarities at the same time.”
In an era fraught with social, cultural, and economic concerns, spending an hour in someone else’s story is not simply a diversion. Nor is it a destination, according to Sangare. “Theater is a vehicle,” he says. “We can use it to learn about ourselves and to discover other people.”
And in an industry where economics often takes center stage, Sangare offers a different kind of math: “We are all billionaires if we pay attention to stories.”
Fast facts: United Solo Theatre Festival
- Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, New York City
- October 20 through November 22, 2026
Save the date: Solo Unplugged with Cheeyang Ng
Saturday, November 7
4 p.m.
Cheeyang Ng‘s solo ritual musical, Legendary, sold out its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer, earned five-star reviews, and won three awards: Outstanding Individual Performance at the Asian Art Awards, the IC Awards’ Personal Achievement Award, and a Gold Edinburgh Festival Fringe Theatre Award.
The Singapore-born artist-producer joins 1 Minute Critic founder and editorial director Matthew Wexler for an intimate conversation about new forms of theatermaking, pushing back on Western ideas of what theater “should” be, and breaking through as a queer Asian multi-hyphenate talent.
Tickets on sale soon!
