Lara Donahue \u201914 would love to tell you about the play she recently produced. But per the contract, she can\u2019t share much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The show, White Rabbit Red Rabbit<\/em>, requires no director, no rehearsals, and no set. Even the show\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Written by Nassim Soleimanpour, White Rabbit Red Rabbit<\/em> is inspired by the Iranian playwright\u2019s 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 \u2014 Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, John Hurt, and Cynthia Nixon among them \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSeeing that it had to be performed on the 13th just gave me chills. To me, that was a sign.\u201d<\/p>\nLara Donahue \u201914<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> as a spectator at an off-Broadway performance in 2016. She was enthralled, but hadn\u2019t given it much more thought until 2023, when she received an email from the play\u2019s 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<\/em>\u2019s creative license for one day only \u2014 on March 13, 2023, in commemoration of the day COVID-19 shut down Broadway in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, there were stipulations in place to maintain the play\u2019s secrecy: no marketing, no video or audio recording, no social media chatter whatsoever. Producers can\u2019t 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 \u2014 and felt a serendipitous Colgate connection with the date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSeeing that it had to be performed on the 13th just gave me chills,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, that was a sign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began by casting her actor, reaching out to a cousin in Georgia with a background in theater. After securing a venue (a friend\u2019s apartment) and an audience (about 15 friends open to this \u201clooney tunes idea,\u201d says Donahue), the performance was a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next year, with the creative agency\u2019s free-license offer reinstated for March 13, 2024, Donahue knew she wanted to produce the show again \u2014 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<\/em>\u2019s off-Broadway premiere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With help from well-connected theater friends, she enlisted accomplished indie film actor Terra Layne and found a new \u201cstage\u201d in another friend\u2019s Harlem townhouse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On March 13, 2024, approximately 40 people \u2014 including a handful of Colgate alumni \u2014 attended the performance and joined the growing cadre of theatergoers who have remained impressively tight-lipped about the show\u2019s plot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s really cool because once you see it, you become a member of this community,\u201d says Donahue, who explains how just taking in the performance with a group is an unexpected bonding experience. \u201cBy the end of the show, it\u2019s like we\u2019ve all taken this roller-coaster ride together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lara Donahue ’14 produced an enigmatic off-Broadway hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1260,"featured_media":15589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2352,2356,2345,2354,553,2349,2353,2346,2351,2350,115,2347],"coauthors":[1720],"class_list":["post-15581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-actress","tag-audience","tag-broadway","tag-casting","tag-covid-19","tag-director","tag-nyc","tag-play","tag-playwright","tag-set","tag-theater","tag-white-rabbit-red-rabbit"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-43j","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/07\/Producer-and-Actor-e1722360988665.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15581"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16010,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions\/16010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15581"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n