White Rabbit Red Rabbit

This October, County Stage invites Prince Edward County audiences to experience one of contemporary theatre’s most unusual and exhilarating theatrical experiments with three one-night-only performances of Nassim Soleimanpour’s internationally acclaimed White Rabbit Red Rabbit.

The premise is deceptively simple.

A sealed envelope.
A different performer each night.
No rehearsal. No director. No safety net.

At each performance, an actor walks onto the stage having never read the play they are about to perform. They have been instructed not to research the script, not to prepare, and simply to show up. Waiting for them is a sealed envelope containing Soleimanpour’s play.

The actor opens it in front of the audience and, from that moment forward, performer and audience discover what happens together.

County Stage will present White Rabbit Red Rabbit at The Andrew in Picton on three consecutive Thursdays in October 2026, each featuring a different performer:

October 9: Mira Skye Sorbara Korngold
October 16: Carolyn Taylor
October 23: Paul Snepsts

With no prior staging and no opportunity to rehearse what comes next, each performance unfolds in a state of vibrant, exhilarating tension. Funny, mischievous, provocative, and at times deeply unsettling, White Rabbit Red Rabbit explores questions of obedience, power, freedom, choice, and collective responsibility while continually shifting the relationship between playwright, performer, and audience.

Written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour while he was unable to leave his country, the play became a way for his words to travel where he could not: a long-distance dialogue between the author, a performer he has never met, and an audience gathered somewhere in the world.

Since its premiere in 2011, White Rabbit Red Rabbit has become one of the most widely travelled plays in contemporary theatre. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and performed more than 3,000 times around the world, with performers including John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Stephen Rea, and Dominic West.

Three Night Package Deal Available! Learn more and purchase tickets here.