WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT LA Premiere is Coming to Fountain Theatre

The play that no one knows — not even the actors. The Fountain Theatre, in association with Nassim Soleimanpour Productions, will present the Los Angeles premiere of White Rabbit Red Rabbit, the global sensation by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour that explores the restrictions, censorship and denial of individual choice faced under a harsh regime. A theater experience like no other, performances take place May 11 through June 22.

At each performance, a different actor will step onto the stage and be handed a script they’ve never seen before. No rehearsal, no director. Every night is opening night — no repeats. A partial list of “rabbits” — made up of actors who have performed at the Fountain, film and TV actors, faith leaders, writers, teachers and other artistic leaders — includes Sufe Bradshaw (VEEP), Guillermo Cienfuegos (artistic director, Rogue Machine; director, Fountain Theatre’s Between Riverside and Crazy), Candy Clark (American Graffiti), Behzad Dabu (How to Get Away With Murder), Ellen Geer (artistic director, Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum), Sandra Tsing Loh (NPR’s The Loh Life), Joshua Malina (The West Wing, Fountain readings of All The President’s Men and Ms. Smith Goes to Washington at City Hall), Simone Missick (TV’s Luke Cage, Fountain Theatre’s Citizen: An American Lyric), Maddox K. Pennington, (nonbinary writer, professor, stand-up comic and citizen of the Cherokee Nation) and Paul Raci (Academy Award nominee for Sound of Metal, Fountain Theatre’s Cyrano). Every Monday, the Fountain will roll out the names of “rabbits” on their website and social media who are set to take the stage that week.

Barred from leaving Iran for refusing military service, Soleimanpour conceived White Rabbit Red Rabbit as “a message in a bottle” — a way to use the actor’s voice to communicate the experiences of an entire generation living in a restrictive, harshly censored society directly to the audience. Wild and utterly original, the play explores themes of freedom, control and the human condition, with a focus on the lives of young people. It’s emotionally vulnerable at times, hilarious at others, and always pushing the boundaries of what it means to be present: spontaneous, playful, interactive and unpredictable. Join the Fountain team for a piece of baklava and a conversation in the upstairs café after every performance.

White Rabbit Red Rabbit has been translated into over 30 languages and performed over 3,000 times worldwide. 

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