It's always exciting when an artist's show gets to have multiple productions throughout its development.

Robin Colucci's show, Intact: One Woman's Search For Home, has been gaining traction since it premiered at the United Solo Festival in March 2025.

On the heels of Intact: One Woman's Search For Home returning to the United Solo Festival for a third time, I am thrilled that mine & Robin's schedule finally lined up, to talk about her show.

In this interview, Robin answered my call to share:

• What she hopes audiences come away with after seeing Intact: One Woman's Search For Home
• What she learned about herself from writing this show
• What was the hardest part of writing this play
• What is the most difficult part to perform
• What advice Robin today would give to her younger self
  
• So much more

Connect with Robin: World Changing Books, Facebook, Instagram

When Robin Colucci’s second-grade teacher told her she might be better at math if she had an “intact home” instead of one her parents had “broken” when she was two, she began to think. “Broken.” “Broken?” Maybe her home WAS broken. She came home every day to an empty apartment; she ferociously missed her father, and she wasn’t exactly thrilled with her mother, despite knowing she was working three jobs and plowing through grad school, all to make Robin’s life better. Maybe that teacher was right. Robin’s home was broken.

Intact: One Woman's Search For Home is the story of one woman’s 50-year quest to build an unbroken home, one like all her friends seemed to have—with a mother, a father, and a house the people inside owned. In this hour-long odyssey, through storytelling and original songs, Robin takes the audience on a journey through her parents’ subsequent marriages and divorces, and through several pivotal relationships of her own. Along the way, Robin realizes her definition of “intact” might not look exactly the way she thought it would.

Intact: One Woman's Search For Home is about living life on life’s terms, and also on one’s OWN terms, a message audiences will be moved by and delighted to hear.

Intact: One Woman's Search For Home  returns to the United Solo Festival in NYC for ONE NIGHT ONLY, Thursday, November 6, 2025. Click here for tickets!

1. This November you are returning to the United Solo [Theatre] Festival for the 3rd time with your show, Intact: One Woman’s Search for Home. What makes you keep wanting to bring this show back to the festival? I think the most important thing when you create any artistic work, especially performative work, is to recognize that you don’t really know what you have until you put it in front of an audience. It’s not just about seeing what other people like; it also provides an opportunity to feel into the work with greater clarity.

Performing it twice in the spring showed me some of its weakest spots, which I am nearly done cleaning up and will have addressed by the November show.

2. How do you feel the United Solo Festival helps nourish your play in a way another festival might not? United Solo uniquely nurtures risk-taking and community. One thing I think is terrific is that they are very supportive and encouraging of the artists who show up. For example, they offer these Sunday open mics where you can come and perform 3 minutes of anything that you want. I went to one of those “Sunday Solo” events in November of last year, where I showed up on a lark just to try out one bit I’d written for the script.

At that time, my script was maybe half done. The bit was well received, and Wendy Lane Bailey came up to me after and suggested I apply to do a show in the spring. At first, I was like, “No way. I can’t be ready by then.” But she was encouraging, so I thought, why not?

I know myself, and I can be very good at procrastinating unless I have a deadline. Give me a deadline, and I’ll get it done. So, I signed up for both Spring and Fall 2025 to force myself to finish writing and prepare the show in time for the Spring season. So I could have a chance to improve it and do it again in the Fall.

3. What did you discover from your first two runs of Intact: One Woman's Search for Home that will now inform how you perform the show this time around? The biggest one was that I noticed a huge gap between the third and fourth songs in the show. I’d cut some other songs I’d planned to include due to script edits, and didn’t really realize just how wide a gap it created until I’d performed it. So, I’ve written two new songs, and I have one more that I’m still writing, which will be done soon. And I cut some unnecessary text and tightened up some other bits. 

I also have had more time to memorize, so my expectation is that my performance will be tighter this time. Put all together, I believe these changes will significantly improve the show, so I am looking forward to performing it again to see how it goes.

4. What was the hardest part of this to write and what is the most difficult part of the show to perform? Are they the same part? Great question. To be honest, none of it was easy. It basically chronicles the most disappointing, painful, and embarrassing events of my life, with some joyful ones mixed in.

I chose to make it a comedy, first of all because that’s my personality, but probably more importantly, I don’t think I could bear performing it as a drama. I also think it would have been a drag to watch.

The most difficult part to perform is the end of my second marriage–with the husband I had my kids with, and the closest I got to the traditional version of an “intact home.” That was truly the heartbreak of my life.

I think the hardest to write was the bit about my last relationship—a man I met online who turned out to be a con man. It was difficult to convey how I could have gotten involved with someone like him, probably because there’s part of me that still can’t believe it!

I wanted to show what happened and try to convey the magnetic pull I felt towards him and the internal dialogue and questioning that was going on, as I allowed him to destroy my financial health. It’s very difficult I think, for anyone who hasn’t lived through it to grasp how an otherwise intelligent person could let a thing like that happen.

Robin Colucci performing Intact: One Woman's Search For Home
United Solo Festival, March 2025

5. According to press notes, Intact: One Woman’s Search for Home, takes the audience on your journey of finding a way to build an unbroken home, after your second-grade teacher told you that you might be better at math if you had an "intact home" instead of a "broken" one. What did you learn about yourself from writing this show that you didn't know living through it? Most of all, I learned that I have an intact home now. I had a sense of that on an intellectual level before, but I think writing and performing the show has made me realize that I’ve actually never been happier in any romantic relationship than I am right now—living near the beach in Connecticut with my two pugs, having a great relationship with my two grown children, who are launched, independent, well-adjusted, and wonderful humans, and being the new matriarch of my family—the one who hosts family beach week, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinner, just like my Nonna (grandmother) used to. I love all of it, and I feel very grateful for all of it. And I learned that I wouldn’t be who I am today if any of these past relationships had turned out better.

6. What do you hope audiences come away with after seeing Intact: One Woman's Search for Home? I love that you asked this. More than anything, I hope the women who see it walk away knowing there’s more than one version of a happy ending.

I grew up in the ’70s — during the women’s liberation movement, the divorce boom, and the rise of the “Superwoman” ideal, and yet through all of that, the message was still that the pinnacle of happiness ultimately came from finding “the one.” For a long time, I believed that too.

But what I see now, especially in my daughter’s generation and her friends, is a shift. They seem to be choosing from a much wider spectrum of what fulfillment can look like. One of the core themes that has emerged for me in this show is the idea of building an “intact” family in whatever way feels right for you — and that it may or may not include your family of origin, or a romantic partner at all.

Our social norms have long told women that the only way to live a full, meaningful life is through having a significant other — specifically, a man. I want women to know, like deeply know and understand; that it isn’t the only path. There are so many ways to experience wholeness and happiness, on your own terms.

For years, I kept looking for “the one.” After the con man, I still spent a good ten years searching online because I had this notion that I’d “die with regret” if I never experienced that forever relationship with a “special guy.” But over time, I got so good at spotting the same patterns that used to get me in trouble that I stopped dating altogether. I realized I kept attracting the same kinds of men, and that dealing with them had become utterly uninteresting. 

Eventually, I understood how much time and energy I’d been pouring into this quest for something that might not even exist in the way I imagined and how much more of life I had available to me outside of this unfulfilling, and frankly, boring quest. Letting go of that pressure gave me the freedom to focus on the things that truly matter to me… including writing and producing this play.

Robin Colucci

7. What advice would Robin today give to Robin in second grade? Hang in there, baby! (laughs). Seriously? I’d first of all tell her that none of this was her fault. That the adults in her life made choices that impacted her and made her feel sad and lonely, but it doesn’t mean her home is “broken.” It’s just different. And SHE is not broken. 

I’d want her to know that ultimately her non-traditional family will create an opening for her to have a life that will be more “choose her own adventure” than “follow the script,” and one day, she’ll be glad about that.

8. What is something you found during your journey that you didn't expect to find? Empathy for my mother. And a deep respect. 

I spent the majority of my earlier life feeling angry with her — for taking me away from my dad and my extended family on his side, and then having so little time left for me. She was working full-time and putting herself through school for basically my entire childhood, from the time I was 3 years old to when I was 15, and she finally got her PhD. 

She always had time to discuss my chores, my homework, my grades, and my table manners, but we had barely any time (or money) to go do anything fun or hang out together, because she was always working, or writing papers for her graduate program, or looking for a man herself. 

Looking back, I can only imagine what she must have gone through, raising me without child support from my father, without any extended family nearby, all while putting herself through school from her undergraduate degree all the way to her PhD.

And....miraculously...I turned out okay. And we are closer than ever now. I believe writing my show helped with that.

Robin Colucci

9. In addition to being a playwright and actress, you are also a book coach & strategist where you help your clients from book development and audience-building to high-level marketing and launch support, which has resulted in them securing top literary agents, getting Big 5 publishing deals, and millions in advances, resulting in multiple bestsellers and award-winning titles. What skills did you gain from writing & performing Intact: One Woman's Search for Home that you will now bring back with you to help your clients even more? Better, bolder storytelling. I’ve known for decades that if you’re trying to teach something in a non-fiction book, you need to tell stories, because people remember stories. Writing this play has made me a better storyteller across the board. So when I edit for a client, I’m more ruthless in my cuts. I help my clients become even more efficient at getting to the point and using super-sharp imagery.

As to the bolder piece, I’ve learned, and this may be the most important lesson of all, that we all are tempted to focus on sharing our wins. We want people to know how great we are, how accomplished, how we can help them achieve great things. 

And that’s all fine. But what I’ve learned, and thanks to this process, I’ve learned it on a very deep level, is that if you also share in your writing (or your performance) at least some of your biggest mistakes, your most spectacular failures, your most unreasonable feelings, worst decisions, or greatest sorrows, you will have given your audience one of life’s greatest gifts: they’ll know that they are not alone.

10. What is something we didn't get to talk about in this interview that you'd like my audience to know about you? What’s meant the most to me has been hearing how deeply this show has touched people from all walks of life. I’ve had audience members, from young women to grandmothers, tell me they saw themselves in my story, and that it gave them comfort, courage, or simply a much-needed laugh.

One woman from Greece came up to me after a performance. She had recently gone through a divorce, and she shared how, in her culture, leaving a marriage is still deeply stigmatized even if you’re being treated poorly. She said she wished a show like this existed in Greece, because it might have given her the strength and the role models she needed to leave sooner. She told me she felt seen and understood for the first time in a long time, and that she was grateful.

Moments like that remind me why I do this. Sharing my own experiences (even the painful ones) with a comedic bent has shown me how universal our struggles really are, and how much we all need stories that remind us we’re not alone.

Lastly, I have a couple of new projects in the works that I can’t talk about just yet, but could lead to bigger things, and I hope to continue creating that same sense of connection. Stay tuned and follow me at @WorldChangingBooks and Robin Colucci for updates.

Robin Colucci

More on Robin Colucci:

Robin Colucci is a storyteller. On stage and on the page.

As the founder of World Changing Books, Robin has built a reputation as a world-renowned book coach and strategist, with a 100% success rate helping thought leaders, from Nobel laureates and astronauts to CEOs and emerging voices, secure top literary agents, Big 5 publishing deals, and millions in advances. Her company offers full-service strategy, from book development and audience-building to high-level marketing and launch support, resulting in multiple bestsellers and award-winning titles.

But Robin’s impact isn’t confined to the literary world. Her deeply personal solo show, Intact, explores the pursuit of home, what it means, how we define it, and whether we ever truly find it. With humor, honesty, and original songs, she guides audiences through her journey from a turbulent childhood to adulthood marked by repeating patterns she once vowed to escape. Intact is not an indulgent tell-all, but an immersive experience, marked by candid vulnerability, self-deprecating wit, and an emotional resonance that reflects her talent for weaving comedy with sincerity.

Robin’s reflections on relationships and identity (both in her creative and professional work) offer a compelling narrative about redefining wholeness, healing early wounds, and reclaiming one's story. Whether she’s helping authors find their voice or stepping into her own on stage, Robin Colucci is in the business of transformation, one story at a time.