Mwine's first effort as a Playwright, a barestage one-man show entitled Biro, about a HIV-positive Ugandan former rebel soldier who enters the United States illegally for treatment. The play, depicting a 90-minute explanation from the eponymous character to his Lawyer about how he came to be in a Texas jail, premiered in early 2003 at Uganda's National Theatre. It later showed at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York, as well as in Los Angeles, Seattle, London, and throughout Africa. Mwine performed the work for multiple African heads of state and then-UN General Secretary Kofi Annan in 2004. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer described his performance as "radiant", particularly so given the dark subject matter.