Progress Lab from Neworld Theatre on Vimeo.

Through its 10-year history, Progress Lab 1422 (PL 1422) has organically grown from a co-location space to an interdisciplinary creative hub, supporting a wide range of artistic disciplines and creating a welcoming and generative space for artists from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. This exceptional space has been home to the creation and realization of some of Canada’s most innovative performance works of the last ten years including Betroffenheit (named the Best Dance of the 21^st Century by The Guardian), the interactive and boundary-pushing Foreign Radical, radically inclusive King Arthur’s Night, The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius (winner of six Jessie Awards), international touring hit Winners and Losers, amongst many others.

Building on this foundation, we are excited to be welcoming three new resident organizations: Playwrights Theatre Centre (PTC), a new-play company dedicated to reimagining theatre, rice & beans, a local theatre company interested in experimenting with languages and the theatrical form, as well as Company 605, our first resident dance company. Our new roommates start arriving this November! (more…)

High Seas / Low Seas. Graphic: J. Parasram

Rumble Theatre is pleased to announce our current season, “High Seas / Low Seas”, which features a trio of exciting contemporary plays that explore the notion of solidarity: Take d Milk, Nah?, written and performed by Rumble’s own Artistic Director Jivesh Parasram; Good Morning, Viet Mom by Franco Nguyen; and the Canadian premiere of B by Guillermo Calderón.

“With this season’s programming we’re asking ourselves and audience members to consider what it means to stand together amidst ever-changing circumstances,” Parasram said. “How can we maintain solidarity when conditions aren’t so comfortable? Can we be a friend even when the distances between us seem infinite, or when our differences appear irreconcilable?” (more…)

Jiv Parasram in Take D Milk, Nah? Photo: Marko Kovacevic

Written and Performed by Jivesh Parasram
co-created with Tom Arthur Davis and Graham Isador

Produced by Rumble Theatre and Pandemic Theatre
in association with Neworld Theatre
Presented by The Cultch, with Diwali in BC

October 16 – 26, 2019
Evening performances (Oct 16-19, 22-26) at 7:30pm; matinees (Oct 19, 20, 26) at 2pm
Vancity Culture Lab at The Cultch, Vancouver, BC | map

Tickets: $39 – Click to buy now at The Cultch

Rumble Theatre and Pandemic Theatre, in association with Neworld Theatre, are pleased to present the Vancouver premiere production of Take d Milk, Nah?, written and performed by Jivesh Parasram (AKA our amazing Artistic Director).

Jiv is “Canadian.” And “Indian.” And “West Indian.” “Trinidadian”, too. Or maybe he’s just colonized. In Take d Milk, Nah?, Jiv blends personal storytelling and ritual to walk an audience through the Hin-dos and Hin-don’ts at the intersections of these cultures. The show is a refreshingly candid and delightfully funny look at race, religion, and nationalism(s): what divides us—and what we’re willing to accept in the desire to belong. Oh, and there’s a cow.

For more info about Take d Milk, Nah?, click this link.

Summer is here and it’s time for us to wrap Rumble’s 2018-2019 season.

It’s been a fun and busy year highlighted by new people, new programming, and new directions. We welcomed Jiv as our new Artistic Director and he joined Christie and Kellee to form the company’s shared leadership core. We produced another awesome edition of Tremors, shared four more Living Room sessions with the emerging artist community, continued work on Carmen Aguirre’s adaptation of Medea, and brought Nassim Soleimanpour’s BLANK to the stage. We supported exciting indie theatre productions, including With a Spoon Theatre’s Jessie-nominated The Wolves and Kimmortal and Immigrant Lessons’ multidisciplinary piece X Marks the Movement, which played at the 2019 PuSh Festival opening night party. We also had a hand in producing/presenting community events such as the second edition of Ephemera (at the GVPTA’s Making a Scene Conference) and the national livestream premiere of The Cave. 

Thank you to our funders, donors, Board of Directors, volunteers, artists, and audiences – we’re grateful to all of you who helped us to make this season happen. We hope you’ll join us all again for our 2019-20 season, which starts soon. First up will be our next development workshop for Medea, which takes place in August as part of Boca del Lupo’s Residency Program. We’ll announce the full season’s programming soon, so stay tuned. (If you haven’t already, please sign up for our newsletter to get all of the latest updates.) Until then, have a happy summer!

 – The Rumblers 

Above photos are from Rumble’s Donor Thank You event (Kiwassa Neighbourhood House, June 20, 2019), which featured performances from our friends at the Southeast Asian Cultural Heritage Society (SEACHS) and a first-ever public reading of Medea by Carmen Aguirre.

created by John Millard, Tomson Highway, and Martha Ross
produced by The Cave Collective
presented at Luminato 2019

Vancouver screening:
Saturday, June 22, 2019
PL1422 | 1422 William Street, Vancouver, BC V5L 2P7
Doors at 4:30pm; live stream of The Cave at 5:00pm
Admission: By donation at the door
RSVP via our FB event page

The Cave

RUMBLE IS THE VANCOUVER LIVE STREAM PARTNER FOR THE CAVE’S CANADIAN PREMIERE

While the forest fire rages all around, destroying everything in its path a group of animals escapes to what they believe will be the safety of The Cave. As they try to wait it out their anxiety grows. Some animals retreat into memories, others become increasingly aware of the centuries of human activity that has led to the obliteration of their homes.

An entertaining apocalyptic cabaret created by celebrated Canadian artists John Millard (composer), Tomson Highway (lyrics), and Martha Ross (dramaturg), The Cave is an intimate, urgent response to our changing environment, that poses questions about climate change, and who is responsible for this land and the lives that inhabit it?

An evening of riveting storytelling and music, told by the innocents, challenges us all. The Cave will be live-streamed to locations near and far on Saturday, June 22nd, including by Rumble in Vancouver. Other partners include the Banff Centre, the National Arts Centre, and Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse. The livestream that is simultaneously watched all over Canada and the world inspires and defines the spirit of the project.

For more information on The Cave, click here.