Three actors, one script, no rehearsal: Stage Left Theater puts on ‘White Rabbit Red Rabbit,’ cold read on stage

“White Rabbit Red Rabbit” begins like any other theatrical production. After the audience is seated, the lights will go down, and an actor will walk on stage.

Immediately after though, all similarities to other productions end. With this play, written by Nassim Soleimanpour, each show finds a new actor removing a script they have never seen before from an envelope and performing the show for the first and only time.

There are no rehearsals, no director and no sets, just an actor cold reading in front of an audience, experiencing the various emotions and ups and downs the show entails in real time.

A Google search of “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” finds this information and little else, save for the only hint of a topic: Forbidden to leave Iran after refusing mandatory military service, Soleimanpour wrote the play about contemporary Iran and power dynamics in the rest of the world.

This is not an overtly political show though, as per information sent to theaters that receive the rights to the play. “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” the statement continues, “operates on a deeper, metaphoric level and very expressly avoids overt political comment.”

Sure, you could probably dig a little deeper and find out more details, but the secrecy Soleimanpour intended for the show has been respected by the more than 3,000 actors who have performed it in more than 30 languages, as well as the countless audience members who sat down and trusted Soleimanpour’s writing and the skills of the performer.

Stage Left Theater has organized three productions of “White Rabbit Red Rabbit.” On Friday, Danny Anderson will perform, followed by Dahveed Bullis on Saturday and Rebecca Craven on Sunday.

A former Stage Left board member told Bullis, artistic director of the theater, about the show. Bullis was intrigued and found a place for the show in the season’s schedule. The board member offered to pay for the rights to the show on one condition: that Bullis himself perform one of the shows.

He agreed and called on Anderson and Craven to take the other two performances.

The idea of cold reading a full production in front of an audience made Anderson and Craven pause, but the pair quickly came to see the show as a logical next project given their years of experience.

“It really matters that the next project’s challenging or at least interesting or there’s going to be something new for me…” Anderson said. “Dahveed told me about that, and I’m like ‘Sounds terrifying,’ and that’s one of my rules. If a project scares me, take a second look at it, because that’s going to be something new and challenging. That’s my sign that it’s going to be something fresh.”

Craven felt similarly about wanting to be challenged as an actor and calmed some of her nerves by reminding herself of all the cold reading she has done at auditions over the years.

While the trio would normally spend the weeks and months before opening night running lines, researching topics that help them better understand the play’s content and talking things through with castmates and the director, “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” challenges their actorly instincts.

They threw out ideas – maybe it’s a journey from young to old, maybe the play asks the actor to be a rabbit – but they won’t know for certain until the moment the play begins.

In Craven’s light research into the show, she found there are three rules for actors: You can only perform the show once in your lifetime, you can’t read the play in advance and you must do a cold reading.

The only way for them to prepare then is to cold read texts of their choosing, be it a bedtime story for a child or a novel they had not already read.

The trio have managed to avoid any information about the show aside from what is readily available and are truly going in blind. Anderson said this levels the playing field between actor and audience and will likely have both sides of the stage excited, but also a little scared, to see what happens.

“White Rabbit Red Rabbit” isn’t improvised, as there is a full script, but it does have the same “anything can happen” energy that performers and audience members likely feel before an improv comedy show where performers make up scenes on the spot based on audience suggestions.

Craven saw mention of a few moments of audience interaction, but she has no idea what those moments entail. The audience is likely to be with the actors, not against them, Anderson said, and if disaster strikes, which he does not think it will, the show only lasts about 90 minutes.

“It’s going to be a unique experience for a theater…” Craven said. “It’s going to be a movement between the audience and the actor that will never be recreated again.”

Bullis said it seems to be one of those shows that people who engage with it, from either side of the stage, will remember as “before ‘White Rabbit Red Rabbit’ ” and “after ‘White Rabbit Red Rabbit.’ ”

Craven cannot say for certain if the show will change how she approaches her next script after years of doing things a certain way, but she does know it will fundamentally change something about the actors after they have performed.

Bullis said if this weekend of shows is successful, he could see “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” becoming a seasonal production, with a new actor each show, of course. He has already heard from actors in town who are interested in performing, and with no rehearsal, set or director needed, it is an easy show to produce.

It is also one that speaks to his goals with Stage Left, which includes showing people what is possible with theater.

“The only way that we’re going to inspire the next generation to dare to try new things is to do that ourselves and be like ‘Look, it doesn’t have to be something that is a play from the Western world. It doesn’t have to be the format that you’re used to, of sitting there passive and taking it in. It can actually be quite different than that,’ ” he said. “This art form is designed for people to talk and commune, and in hearing about what this production is, I was like ‘This is a representation of everything I believe the craft could be.’ ”