ECHO

A new performer takes the stage every evening, without a clue about what will be asked of them. Along with director Omar Elerian, Nassim Soleimanpour takes the technique of “cold reads” (the reading of an unrehearsed script aloud) to a higher level, live in connection with Soleimanpour's apartment in Berlin. What does it mean today to be able to connect with the other solely via a telephone, via a screen? Drawing on the experience of migration, these devices open the gates to our imagination. A new performer takes the stage every evening, without a clue about what will be asked of them. Unrehearsed and unprepared, the script becomes their guide during their journey through the story of playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, live-linked with his apartment in Berlin. Or does it? Can we really know where or when we are? ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) asks us to confront what it means to be a migrant across different timelines. What does it mean today to be able to meet another person solely via a telephone- or screen-based connection? Drawing from the experience of migration, these devices open the gates to our imagination. ECHO is an ambitious, magical, and uncompromising production in which no one travels, but everyone can still be present. Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and Italian-Palestinian director Omar Elerian push the boundaries of Soleimanpour's signature un-rehearsed “cold reads” (the reading of an un-rehearsed script aloud) to a higher level. “ECHO: a brilliant meta-theatrical experiment” – The Telegraph • Nassim Soleimanpour is an Iranian-German playwright and theatre-maker. His plays have been translated into more than forty languages and have been performed thousands of times worldwide by some of the biggest names in the theatre world. He is best known for his cold read plays, in which an untrained actor performs the piece without having seen the location, for a live audience. Some well-known works include White Rabbit Red Rabbit (& Westside Theatre New York City/International Tour), BLANK (& Summerhall/International Tour), NASSIM (& Bush/ Traverse/New York City Center/International Tour); Blind Hamlet (& Actors Touring Company/LIFT); COOK (& Copenhagen Grob/ Bush/International Tour); Mr. K and The Flowers (Audible), and ECHO (& The Royal Court/LIFT) • Omar Elerian, an Italian of Palestinian descent, was educated in Italy and graduated from the Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris in 2005. He served as associate director at the Bush Theatre from 2012 to 2019, where he commissioned and directed some of the theatre's most successful productions. As the sole director of the Bush Theatre, his productions include the blockbuster Misty by Arinzé Kene (Bush, West End, and Off-Broadway), NASSIM by Nassim Soleimanpour (Bush, Traverse Theatre, and world tour), Going Through by Estelle Savasta, and Islands by Caroline Horton. His most recent directing credits include The Return of Danton by Syrian playwright Mudar Alhaggi, which premiered at the Münchner Kammerspiele, The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco at the Almeida Theatre, the Olivier Award-nominated Two Palestinians Go Dogging by Sami Ibrahim at the Royal Court Theatre, and As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.