By Nassim Soleimanpour

Produced by Rumble Theatre, in association with Aurora Nova

April 30 – May 4, 2019
Tues. to Sat. evening performances at 8pm; Sat. matinee at 2pm
PL1422 at 1422 William Street, Vancouver, BC

Tickets: $20 – Tickets will be on sale shortly. Stay tuned!

Rumble Theatre, in association with Aurora Nova, is pleased to present the Canadian premiere production of BLANK by Nassim Soleimanpour, an interactive experience where Audience and Performer collide and collaborate to spark a new, moving life story each night.

Known for creating plays without directors, sets and rehearsals, acclaimed Iranian playwright Soleimanpour (White Rabbit Red Rabbit) takes it to new extremes with BLANK. 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 their own future determined by the imagination of others.

Each night (and matinee) will feature a different performer who, like the audience, will be interacting with the blank-riddled script for the very first time. We’ve got a terrific line-up of theatre talent who will be taking the stage for our production of BLANK, including Dave Deveau as his alter-ego Peach Cobblah, Kim Sənklip Harvey, Allan Morgan, Emelia Symington Fedy, Hazel Venzon, and Maiko Bae Yamamoto.

For more about BLANK, please follow this link.

Sunday, March 3, 2019, 7pm to 9pm
PL 1422 studio, 1422 William Street, Vancouver
FREE Event; no advance registration required

Photo: Harry Whittier Frees.

Rumble’s next Living Room is coming up soon! Join us on Sunday, March 3 as we delve into a discussion on self-care for artists and ways we can avoid burnout. Some of the questions we’ll be considering are:

How do you juggle professional and personal demands while safeguarding your creativity and maintaining good health?

Can rest be a radical act?

How do we support and encourage one another to take breaks? 

Rumble Artistic Director Jiv Parasram and Ariel Martz-Oberlander (Youth Program Manager at The Cultch) will be co-facilitating this session.

You don’t have to sign-up in advance but you can view the event details on Facebook and let us know if you’re interested in joining us.

**Please note that this Living Room is on a Sunday night rather than the usual Monday evening session**.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a theatre artist, writer, producer and teacher on stolen/occupied Coast Salish Territories with a background in community theatre. She divides her time between theatre and community organizing with much overlap. Ariel is the Youth Program Manager at The Cultch, supporting and facilitating artistic mentorships for artists 13-26 and producing the IGNITE! Youth-Driven Arts Festival in May. Her own practice often explores her complex relationship to the land as the granddaughter of refugees. Her current work in progress, “on behalf”, a performance for two dancers combining recorded text and ritual, and exploring themes of displacement from the body and life after assault, premiered at Vines Festival 2018 and is currently in development toward a full-length version. Ariel is the recipient of the 2017 Mayor’s Arts Award for emerging community artist.

The Living Room is co-produced by the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance.

See a new creation in the works before you “chill out” with Rumble in our Living Room!

Our friends at Theatre Conspiracy are offering a cool opportunity to see a work-in-progress showing of their latest creation on Sunday, March 3rd. The showing will take place in the PL1422 studio at 6pm (doors at 5:30pm), before we turn the space over for the Living Room.

Here’s a little more about the project:

Theatre Conspiracy’s Isolation Suite.

Isolation Suite (working title) is a new, immersive theatre piece by Theatre Conspiracy Artistic Producer Tim Carlson. The piece investigates the continuum between the negative effects of social isolation and the restorative power of solitude within a media-saturated society. 

In the piece, UnDone is going grey – physically, mentally, spiritually, existentially. “I’ve lost my identity but remain a presence. Am I still a person?”

A first creation session further explores immersive audience division and multi-perspective concepts applied in such Theatre Conspiracy shows as Foreign Radical. Tim is collaborating with TC’s artist-in-residence Gavan Cheema (who participated in Rumble’s 2018 Directors’ Lab)  and Rumble Artistic Director Jiv Parasram. This short public showing (approx. 20-30 minutes) will wrap up their first creation period.

The showing is free to attend. Please note that latecomers will not be admitted.

Rumble Theatre is pleased to announce that we’re offering a new workshop opportunity this year: Producers’ Lab. Building on the strengths of our Directors’ Lab intensive, Producers’ Lab will be an immersive weekend of practical approaches to producing small-scale theatre.  

WHO: Intended for early-career producers, this workshop is ideally suited to those who are eligible for British Columbia Arts Council project funding and have a project that they are currently seeking funding to produce.
WHEN: Saturday, March 2 & Sunday, March 3, 2019.
Sessions will run from 10am to 5pm each day.
WHERE: PL1422 at 1422 William Street, Vancouver. 

About the Workshop
You will leave this course with practical tools for framing and pitching your work, in addition to techniques and tested practices for budgeting and scheduling on a small scale. This is also an opportunity to receive support on your provincial funding grant application and to engage in peer-to-peer conversation around producing needs within our sector. Rumble’s Artistic Director Jiv Parasram and Managing Producer Christie Watson will facilitate the weekend. The cost of the workshop also includes a follow-up copyedit of a portion of your grant prose with Director of Operations Kellee Ngan (via e-mail). 

Fees & Financial Assistance
Application is free. The participation fee for the workshop is $175 + GST. Rumble is able to offer limited partial bursaries for artists with financial and/or accessibility needs. To be considered for financial assistance, please include a brief statement in your application outlining how you would benefit from being awarded one of the bursaries. 

How to Apply
Applicants are asked to submit a short (no longer than one page) statement that answers the following question: Why are you interested in participating in this particular workshop? 

Please also indicate if you are intending to apply for the upcoming BCAC project grant. (Note: This is not a requirement to participate in the workshop—we’d just like to know beforehand how many people are working toward it.) 

We strongly encourage submissions from artists who self-identify as members of under-represented communities. 

E-mail your application (and your statement for financial assistance, if submitting) to  jiv@rumble.org  with the subject line: “Producers’ Lab application”. 

You can also send your application via mail to or drop it off in person at: Rumble Theatre, 1422 William Street, Vancouver, BC, V5L 2P7 

The deadline to apply is February 22, 2019. 

Please note that workshop spots are extremely limited and that we may not be able to accommodate all applicants due to capacity restrictions.

Welcome to Rumble’s 2018-19 season! It’s been a rocking one so far, marked by exciting theatre-making and new directions for the company. We started things off with Tremors, our festival of emerging talent, in August. Featuring three outstanding contemporary plays by three stellar Canadian playwrights (Selfie by Christine Quintana, Tiny Replicas by Dave Deveau, and Theory by Norman Yeung) and a fierce team of emerging artists, Tremors was a hit with audiences and critics alike.

Meet the Rumblers (l to r): Kellee Ngan, Jivesh Parasram, Carmen Aguirre, and Christie Watson. Photo: Stephen Drover. Location: Postmark Brewing event space.

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PushOFF
Russian Hall
January 31, 2019

Coming up next for Rumble is an industry presentation of Colleen Murphy’s The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius, our award-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. “Titus” is part of this year’s PushOFF, a curated platform of touring work and projects in development that is produced by Theatre Replacement with Company 605. We’re very excited for the opportunity to share a bit of this play again, this time in a showcase format.

Craig Erickson, Pippa Mackie, Naomi Wright, Peter Anderson and Sarah Afful in The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius. Photo by Tim Matheson.

What better way to kick off the new year than with a party? Rumble is very excited to be supporting this special performance of X Marks the Movement — a new art-dance-fashion-theatre collaboration by Kimmortal and Immigrant Lessons, which will be featured at the PuSh International Performing Festival’s Opening Night celebration.

KIMMORTAL PHOTO: IRIS CHIA / IMMIGRANT LESSONS PHOTO: PATTERN NATION

X Marks the Movement is a story-based show that plays with the concept of map-making in order to reframe narratives of home and diaspora. The story explores what it means for its characters to be in relationship with each other as diasporic artists of colour on unceded Indigenous land. Militant and musically ingratiating, this is a performance designed to move the crowd and change the conversation.

January 17, 2019 | PuSh Festival Opening Night Party
The Beaumont Studios | 316 W 5th Ave, Vancouver, BC
Doors at 9:30PM, performances throughout the evening
Free admission; 19+

Read more about the artists and the show here