White Rabbit Red Rabbit
Click here to view the Program
Written by Nassim Soleimanpour
A play performed entirely without rehearsal, performed by an actor
who walks on stage and is handed a script they have never seen.
Public Energy presents an Aurora Nova production as part of a global one-day theatre movement marking the one-year anniversary when theatres around the world went dark.
Theatres everywhere have the option of performing the play for in-theatre and/or online audiences on March 13 at 8pm. Here in Peterborough we have opted for an online audience only, due to the community outbreak of a COVID variant.
Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 8:00pm
Performed live by Beau Dixon BioOpens New Window
at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre
Get Tickets
Just like going to the theatre, this play can not be viewed a second time. It is available for viewing once as a real-time performance.
How to watch: This event will take place via Zoom. You will receive a link to the Zoom meeting the day before the event, and a reminder an hour before the event. The link will also be available on the Eventbrite page on the night of the event.
About White Rabbit Red Rabbit:
Will you participate? Will you be manipulated? Will you listen? Will you really listen?
With no rehearsal, no director, a different actor each night, and a script waiting in a sealed envelope on stage, internationally acclaimed White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour, is an audacious theatrical experiment and a potent reminder of the transgressive and transformative power of theatre.
Forbidden to leave his native Iran, Soleimanpour wrote a play which travelled the world in his place. The audience joins each different performer on a journey into the unknown; stumbling upon the personal and profound, the limits of liberty and ultimately where theatre can take you.
Since its joint premiere in 2011, the play has been translated into 20 different languages and has been performed over 1000 times by some of the biggest names in theatre and film, including actors Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, John Hurt, Simon McBurney, Stephen Rea, Sinead Cusack, Marcus Brigstocke and Ken Loach.
Urgent: All media and press agents have to keep in mind that the playwright is an Iranian citizen.
Note: This play is NOT overtly political, and should not be portrayed as such. It operates on a deeper, metaphoric level, and very expressly avoids overt political comment. All media and press agents have to keep in mind that the playwright is an Iranian native. We therefore ask the press to be judicious in their reportage.
White Rabbit, Red Rabbit was originally produced by Volcano Theatre in association with Necessary Angel and Wolfgang Hoffmann.
Dramaturgy by Daniel Brooks and Ross Manson
About Let There Be Theatre, a global one-day theatre movement
Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour is making his play White Rabbit Red Rabbit available free of charge to theatres everywhere for one day as a way to celebrate the resiliency of live theatre and show that creativity can overcome adversity. Local producers keep the box office as a way to help local actors and theatres. Listen to Nassim speak about it here.
Playwright Bio:
Nassim Soleimanpour is an independent multidisciplinary theatre maker from Tehran, Iran. His plays have been translated into 20 languages. Best known for his play White Rabbit Red Rabbit, written to travel the world when he couldn’t, his work has been awarded the Dublin Fringe Festival Best New Performance, Summerworks Outstanding New Performance Text Award and The Arches Brick Award (Edinburgh Fringe) as well as picking up nominations for a Total Theatre and Brighton Fringe Pick of Edinburgh Award.
By the time Nassim was permitted to travel for the first time in early 2013, his play White Rabbit Red Rabbit had been performed over 1000 times in 20 languages. Since then Nassim has facilitated workshops and panels in different countries including World Theatre Festival (Brisbane), Tolhuistuin (Amsterdam), SESC Vila Mariana (Sao Paulo), Schauspielhaus (Vienna), DPAC (Kuala Lampur), Theatertreffen (Berlin), British Council (London), Asia House (London) and University of Bremen (Germany).
Nassim’s second play Blind Hamlet for the London based Actors Touring Company premiered at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has since toured extensively around the UK and was received well in Bucharest and Copenhagen. His third play BLANK premiered in November 2015 at Dancing on the Edge Festival in Amsterdam and Utrecht followed by performances at Radar Festival in London.
2017 saw the premiere of Nassim’s latest play, the eponymously titled NASSIM which features the playwright himself on stage. Co-produced by the Bush Theatre in London, the play premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to great acclaim, winning the prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award. Nassim now lives in Berlin with his wife Shirin and dog Echo, and tours the world with NASSIM while working on new material for the stage.
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