Continuing the formal experiment that marked White Rabbit Red Rabbit, Nassim Soleimanpour brings us BLANK. In a joint effort between audience and performer, the gaps in the script are filled in to reveal a story that celebrates the human imagination.
As formally inventive as it is engaging, BLANK reverses the typical theatre experience. A script riddled with blanks leaves the audience in charge of how the story will unfold. The concept might be simple. But the result is nothing short of empowering as a random audience member sees his or her future determined by the imagination of others.
Celebrated for his plays without directors, sets and rehearsals the acclaimed Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour takes it to extremes in his play full of blanks. It is to be completed by a new performer before a live audience each show. The play becomes a story machine to share the life story of the playwright, the performer and a random audience member.
BLANK previously played at the Bush as part of RADAR 2015 – a festival that feels the pulse of the new writing world and shines a spotlight on our hottest emerging and established talent.
Nassim Soleimanpour is from Tehran, Iran. His plays have been translated into more than 20 languages. 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.
By the time Nassim was permitted to travel for the first time in early 2013, his play White Rabbit Red Rabbit had 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), Theatretreffen (Berlin), Grob Theatre (Copenhagen), British Council, University of Bremen (Germany), Tata Literature Live (India) and etc.
Nassim’s second play Blind Hamlet for the London based Actors Touring Company premiered at The LIFT 2014 and has toured in the UK and was received well in Bucharest and Copenhagen. BLANK is his third play which premiered in November 2015 simultaneously in Amsterdam, Utrecht and London and since then was performed in Scotland, Argentina, Australia, India and etc.
Nassim now lives in Berlin and is under commissions to write a play for Theatre Momentum (Odense).
Sarah-Jane Price graduated with a 1st class degree in Theatre, before going on to study a Post Graduate Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music from which she graduated with distinction. She has worked professionally as a performer and session singer for several years before realising her passion for casting.
Working for a variety of companies initially as a freelance runner and then a casting assistant, she then became a full casting director with Club11 London. Her work includes: Nassim Plays (Bush Theatre), Putting it Together (Belfast Lyric), Hello Again (The Hope Theatre), Adding Machine: A Musical (Finborough Theatre), Vanara (London Premiere) and various other shows, cabarets and theatre.
