In normal times Róisín Stack is a busy woman with a thriving career in the theatre world. She spends much of her life making shows with other creative people – many of whom are close friends.

But in March 2020, the world shut down and all that  stopped.

Being a creative and social person, Róisín began wondering who she was without those vital artistic connections and face-to-face friendships.

The result is a new one-woman show, No Woman is an Island, which is playing Galway next week before transferring to Dublin Theatre Festival – that organisation previously gave Róisín funding to help with its development.

She stresses several times that “this isn’t a show about the pandemic and being stuck in your home” but rather about “figuring out the whole idea of solitude and how it could be positive”.

No Woman is an Island follows Róisín’s previous show, the absurdist, Also for Roaring, which played Galway’s Black Box and Limerick’s Belltable in February 2022.

In this new piece, she follows one woman’s attempt to carve out creative solitude while fielding interruptions from her outer and inner worlds, including a highly-opinionated sister and a vocal, aggressive cat.

No Woman is an Island is a performance-lecture show, which will use projected images to share texts by female artists who have inspired her. They include Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Mary Sarton and Maggie Nelson – Nelson’s work influenced the fragmentary form of this piece.

Pictured: Róisín contemplates wise advice from poet Mary Oliver in her new show, No Woman is an Island.