WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT by Nassim Soleimanpour

  • April 11 - 24, 2023
  • Old City Performing Arts Center

    111 State Street
    Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
Ticket Price $0.00-$40.00 This event is now over
Description

Don't Miss our Last Show of the Season, FUN HOME. Music by Jeanine Tesori, Book and Lyrics by Lisa Kron, based on the Graphic Novel by Alison Bechdel. Tickets Here: https://www.simpletix.com/e/fun-home-by-jeanine-tesori-and-lisa-kron-b-tickets-116092

---

River & Rail Theatre Company presents WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT by Nassim Soleimanpour.

No director. No set. No rehearsal. This one-person show is written to be handed to its performer on the night of their performance in front of a live audience, to be performed cold turkey. And it is absolutely stunning to watch. Every. Single. Time. 

Forbidden to leave his country, playwright Nassim Soleimanpour distilled the experience of an entire generation in a wild, utterly original play. WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT is a work about contemporary Iran and of Nassim’s generation. A generation born amidst the hardship of the Iran-Iraq war. A generation of computer-literate, well-informed young people who have never known an Iran other than the Islamic Republic.

Since its joint premier in 2011 in Edinburgh and Summerworks festival WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT has been translated into more than 25 different languages and been performed over 2000 times by some of the biggest names in theatre and film including actors John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Stephen Rea, Sinead Cusack, Marcus Brigstocke, Dominic West and film director Ken Loach.

About the Playwright

Nassim Soleimanpour is an Iranian playwright, theatre maker and the Artistic Director of the Berlin Based Theatre company Nassim Soleimanpour Productions. His plays have been translated into more than 30 languages and performed globally in over 50 countries. 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. White Rabbit Red Rabbit had a 9 month Off-Broadway run casting celebrated actors like Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Bobby Cannavale, Wayne Brady, F. Murray Abraham, Cynthia Nixon and etc.

​By the time Nassim was permitted to travel for the first time in early 2013, his play White Rabbit Red Rabbit had already been performed hundreds of times in more than a dozen languages. Since then Nassim has facilitated workshops and panels in different events including World Theatre Festival (Brisbane), Tolhuistuin (Amsterdam), SESC Vila Mariana (Sao Paulo), Schauspielhaus (Vienna), DPAC (Kuala Lampur), Theatertreffen (Berlin), Grob Theatre (Copenhagen), British Council London and The Bush Theatre (London), University of Bremen (Germany), ISPA (Edinburgh), TATA Litreture (India), FAE (Lima), Borak [Oz Asia] (Adelaide) and etc.

​Nassim’s second play Blind Hamlet commissioned by the London based Actors Touring Company premiered at The LIFT 2014 and has toured in the UK and was received well in Edinburgh, Bucharest and Copenhagen. His third play BLANK premiered in November 2015 simultaneously in Amsterdam, Utrecht and London and so far has been performed in the UK, Australia, Spain, Mexico, US, Argentina, India, Finland, Denmark, Canada, etc.

​His most recent play NASSIM produced by the Bush Theatre in London was premiered in August 2017 and won a Fringe First Award followed by more than 300 shows in 12 languages across the world. NASSIM had a successful five-month Off-Broadway run casting celebrated American actors like: Michael Shannon, Zachary Quinto, Tracy Letts, Carrie Coon, Kate Walsh, Carla Gugino, Cory Michael Smith, Kathey Najimi, Richard Kind, Reed Birney and etc. NASSIM has won a 2019 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience and was nominated for Prix de la critique maison 2018-2019 à Québec in Dans la catégorie Hors Québec.

​A retrospective of Soleimanpour's plays was held at the Bush Theatre in 2017 under the title Nassimplays.

Soleimanpour’s short play Down by the Creek was published by New York Times as part of America 2024.

​When most theatres had to shut down in 2020 due to a global pandemic, Nassim mentored 7 young playwrights to publish a book which could be read and performed sight on scene around the fire. October 2020, produced by The Boundless Theatre (London) lit fires across the UK!    

​On March 13,  2021 to mark the anniversary of the shut down, from a prison in Mexico, to a local theatre in Pakistan, from Guatemala to New York, 120 producers across the globe put on White Rabbit, Red Rabbit at 8 pm local time.   

​Soleimanpour is currently living in Berlin with his beautiful wife and dog and is busy finalising his new play for the audiobook platform Audible, and a new play for Grob Theatre in Denmark.  

www.nassimsoleimanpour.com

Date & Time

Apr 11 - 24, 2023

Venue Details

Old City Performing Arts Center

111 State Street
Knoxville, Tennessee 37902 Old City Performing Arts Center
River & Rail Theatre Company

A professional non-profit theatre bringing together diverse communities in Knoxville to experience, develop, and discuss world-class theatre arts. Through the power and beauty of theatre, we seek to unite people from all backgrounds to experience and participate in stories that embody our shared humanity.


Find more River & Rail Theatre Company Events and Performing & Visual Arts events in Knoxville