For one night only, Lara Donahue ’14 puts on an enigmatic off-Broadway hit.
Lara Donahue ’14 would love to tell you about the play she recently produced. But per the contract, she can’t share much.
The show, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, requires no director, no rehearsals, and no set. Even the show’s sole actor is in the dark until the moment the play begins and, for the first time, she opens a sealed envelope containing the script.
Written by Nassim Soleimanpour, White Rabbit Red Rabbit is inspired by the Iranian playwright’s experience in his home country after refusing military service. Since debuting in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2011, the play has been performed globally more than 3,000 times and translated into more than 30 languages. Dozens of big-name actors — Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, John Hurt, and Cynthia Nixon among them — have taken on the lead (only) role. And while the script remains the same for each performance, actors are free to insert their own extemporaneous riffs and banter with the audience throughout.
“Seeing that it had to be performed on the 13th just gave me chills. To me, that was a sign.”
Lara Donahue ’14
Donahue, who lives in New York City and works as vice president of business management for LPL Financial, was first introduced to White Rabbit Red Rabbit as a spectator at an off-Broadway performance in 2016. She was enthralled, but hadn’t given it much more thought until 2023, when she received an email from the play’s creative licensing agency. The company, Aurora Nova, was reaching out to everyone who had seen the show in New York with an intriguing offer: free access to White Rabbit Red Rabbit’s creative license for one day only — on March 13, 2023, in commemoration of the day COVID-19 shut down Broadway in 2020.
Of course, there were stipulations in place to maintain the play’s secrecy: no marketing, no video or audio recording, no social media chatter whatsoever. Producers can’t charge for tickets, in an effort to make the performance accessible to all. Donahue, who has always loved theater but had no real theater experience, was game — and felt a serendipitous Colgate connection with the date.
“Seeing that it had to be performed on the 13th just gave me chills,” she says. “To me, that was a sign.”
She began by casting her actor, reaching out to a cousin in Georgia with a background in theater. After securing a venue (a friend’s apartment) and an audience (about 15 friends open to this “looney tunes idea,” says Donahue), the performance was a success.
The next year, with the creative agency’s free-license offer reinstated for March 13, 2024, Donahue knew she wanted to produce the show again — this time on a slightly bigger scale in celebration of an even more Colgate-friendly milestone: the 13th anniversary of the White Rabbit Red Rabbit’s off-Broadway premiere.
With help from well-connected theater friends, she enlisted accomplished indie film actor Terra Layne and found a new “stage” in another friend’s Harlem townhouse.
On March 13, 2024, approximately 40 people — including a handful of Colgate alumni — attended the performance and joined the growing cadre of theatergoers who have remained impressively tight-lipped about the show’s plot.
“It’s really cool because once you see it, you become a member of this community,” says Donahue, who explains how just taking in the performance with a group is an unexpected bonding experience. “By the end of the show, it’s like we’ve all taken this roller-coaster ride together.”