Several prominent New York actors have signed on to take part in an unusual theatrical exercise in which they will each separately perform the same unrehearsed play before a live audience over a series of weeks, without the benefit of either a director or a set.
The play, “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” was written by an Iranian playwright, Nassim Soleimanpour, who had been barred from leaving his home country. The unusual performance structure, in which a different actor does the piece each time, was created as a show of solidarity for the writer.
An earlier version of the play was staged at the Iranian Theater Festival in New York in 2011, and then it had a world premiere in Edinburgh that year; it has since been performed by many actors around the world, including in London, Washington and San Francisco.
The New York run, over a series of Monday nights beginning March 7, will take place at the Westside Theater and will benefit PEN International, the association of writers.
Among the actors who have already been scheduled — each alone on a different night — are Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Wilson, Brian Dennehy and Mike Birbiglia. The producers, Devlin Elliott and Tom Kirdahy, said they were also working to schedule, “on dates soon to be announced, pending artist availability,” performances by Christine Baranski, Alan Cumming, Ramin Karimloo, Andrea Martin, Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, Martin Short and George Takei.