PRESENTS

A FREE ONLINE PRODUCTION OF

MAY 21 - 24
REGISTER AT
RUMBLE.ORG

Creative Team
CARMEN AGUIRRE
CHRISTIE WATSON
ITAI ERDAL
oP AS eeu)
KELLEE NGAN A PLAY BY
LILI ROBINSON
LISSA NEPTUNO
MARIA ESCOLAN eC" 8) | i 5 a R yt @)
SENA CAGLA

la CALDERON
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GREGORY

ae ora a Ey Canada Council| Conseil| des Arts x BRITISH

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Rumble Theatre acknowledges the financial support of the Province of British Columbia
 presents

B
by
Guillermo Calderon
Translated by William Gregory

May 21 - 24, 2020 | Online

Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Directed by Jivesh Parasram

Featuring Carmen Aguirre, Maria Escolan, Lissa Neptuno, and Lili Robinson
Lighting Design by Itai Erdal
Production Design by Christie Watson
Assistant Direction by Shanae Sodhi
Stage Management by Zoe Bellis
Operations and Production Support by Kellee Ngan
Box Office Coordination by Sena Cagla
Consultation by Carmen Aguirre

B was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre on the 28 September 2017

Rumble Theatre is grateful to operate on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish
peoples of the x»me@kweyem (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), and Soelilwetat
(Tsleil-VVaututh) Nations.

Rumble Theatre | 1422 William St, Vancouver BC V5L 2P7 | www.rumble.org

Email: info@rumble.org | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
A NOTE FROM THE RUMBLE TEAM

When we first decided to produce Guillermo Calderon’s play B as part of our 2019-20 season, it
looked a lot different in our minds. We imagined it as a live, intimate theatrical performance that
would take place in the cozy confines of the Havana Theatre. Much has changed since then,
including our vision for this show. What has stayed the same is the initial spark that drew us to
the text. In B, we entertain the question: What does it mean to long to be part of a political
moment that ultimately you are isolated from? What does it mean to feel left behind, or outside?

In approaching the form of comedy it’s an interesting thing to try to distance ourselves from the
dismissive and derogatory term /dfot, and instead look at its etymological origins—where a more
accurate interpretation of the word /diot may simply mean, an outsider. These characters, well
meaning (or not) as they may be in their own frameworks, could be seen as /d/ots. And for those
of us whose daily lives may not be deeply embedded in the struggle, it’s a useful exercise to try
to relate to idiots, and maybe learn to laugh at our own idiocy rather than attempt to hide it.
There’s no shame in being an Idiot sometimes. Shame isn’t particularly productive anyhow. But
consciousness is. Because maybe through raising consciousness, we can learn to listen better.

We, like many of you, have made the transition to working online. And it’s been a steep learning
curve to realize this play as an online production. We've had to adopt new technology, train up
on new software, and rehearse via video conferencing apps. We've had to figure out how to
light and design a show happening in different soaces—including the actors’ kitchens—and
create costumes and props that translate on-screen. And we’ve had to do all of this while
managing home lives that have been transformed by isolation.

We could not have done this without our brilliant and dedicated creative team: Carmen, Maria,
Lissa, Lili, Itai, Zoe, Shanae, and Sena. Thank you for all of your hard work and generosity.

And thank you—everyone in the audience—for supporting Rumble and our digital production of
B. Enjoy the show.

Jiv, Christie & Kellee (Three—sometimes—/diots)

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Guillermo Calderén is a Chilean screenwriter, playwright and theatre director based in the
USA. His plays include B, Neva, Diciembre, Clase, Villa, Speech, Quake, Escuela, Kiss,
Mateluna and Goldrausch. Calder6én’s productions have toured extensively through South
America, North America, and Europe. He has been commissioned to write and direct by the
Dusseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Theater Basel, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Royal Court Theatre,
Center Theater Group, and the Public Theater in New York City, where he also directed Neva.
His co-written screenplay Violeta Went to Heaven won the World Cinema Jury Prize for Drama
at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He co-wrote The Club, directed by Pablo Larrain, winner of

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 1

the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival 2015, and nominated for the Golden
Globes in the Foreign Language category. The script won the Silver plaque at the Chicago
International Film Festival. He wrote the script for Neruda, directed by Pablo Larrain, presented
at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (The Director's Fortnight) during Cannes Film Festival 2016.
B had its premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre (UK) in September 2017.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

William Gregory has translated over 100 plays and has worked for the Royal Court
International Department as a translator, reader and advisor on many Spanish-language new
writing projects since 2003. His translations have also been performed in the US, Ireland,
Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Germany and Austria, and several have been published. He has
lectured on theatre translation, presented at translation events and written articles on the
subject for journals in the UK and France. He is the Translation Managing Editor of The Theatre
Times and a Visiting Research Associate at King’s College London, working with the Spanish
and Latin American Studies department on projects related to Ibero-American Theatre, including
the Out of the Wings theatre collective.

THE CREATIVE TEAM

Carmen Aguirre - José Miguel

Carmen Aguirre is an award-winning theatre artist and author who has written and co-written
over twenty-five plays, including Chile Con Carne, The Refugee Hotel, The Trigger, Blue Box,
Broken Tailbone, and Anywhere But Here, as well as the #1 national bestseller Something
Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter (winner of CBC Canada Reads 2012), and its
bestselling sequel, Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the Revolution. Carmen is
currently writing an adaptation of Euripides’ Medea for Vancouver's Rumble Theatre, and
Moliere’s The Learned Ladies for Toronto’s Factory Theatre. She is a Core Artist at Electric
Company Theatre, a co-founding member of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition
(CALTAC), and has over eighty film, TV, and stage acting credits, including her award-winning
lead role in the Canadian premiere of Stephen Adley Guirgis’ The Motherfucker with the Hat,
and her Leo-nominated lead performance in the independent feature film Bella Ciao!. She is a
graduate of Studio 58. carmenaguirre.ca

Zoe Bellis - Stage Manager

Zoe is a Vancouver-based theatre artist, who is very fortunate to live and play on the traditional
ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-VWWaututh people. She
is very excited to be creating some isolation theatre with this wonderful group of people.
Previous credits include: As Apprentice Stage Manager — The Sound of Music (Arts Club
Theatre Company), All’s Well That Ends Well, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Lysistrata (Bard on
the Beach), East Van Panto: The Wizard of Oz, Snow White (Theatre Replacement), Outside
Mullingar (Chemainus Theatre Festival); as Assistant Stage Manager — The Marvelous
Wonderettes Chemainus Theatre Festival); and as Stage Manager — The Fabulous Lipitones

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 2

(Miracle Theatre Prince George), Suddenly Slaughter (The Biting School). Zoe is a graduate of
Studio 58.

Itai Erdal - Lighting Designer

An award-winning lighting designer, writer and performer, Itai has designed over 300 shows for
theatre, dance and opera companies all over North America and Europe. Some of the
companies he worked with include: New Victory (Off Broadway), The Stratford Festival (11
shows), The Vancouver Opera, Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Bard on the Beach,
Soulpepper, Tarragon, National Arts Centre, The Citadel, MTC, The Segal Centre, The Electric
Company, The Jerusalem Lab, Haifa Theatre, Tamasha, Box Clever and Teatro Villa Velha in
Salvador, Brazil. Itai has won five Jessie Richardson Awards, the ADC’s Jack King Award, a
Dora Mavor Moore Award, Victoria’s Spotlight Choice Award, a Winnipeg Theatre Award, a
Guthrie Award and the Dublin Fringe Design Award. He was shortlisted for the Siminovitch
Prize for Design in 2018. His one-man show How to Disappear Completely (The Chop, directed
by James Long) has had 30 remounts, and continues to tour nationally and internationally.
www.itaierdal.com, www.theelbow.ca

Maria Escolan - Marcela

Born and raised in El Salvador, Maria is a theatre artist, performer, and director who also calls
Vancouver home, the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the
Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-VWaututh Nations. She holds a BFA Degree in Theatre
Performance from the School for Contemporary Arts at SFU and a BA Degree in Race, Gender,
Sexuality, and Social Justice from UBC. Recent credits include performance in PuSh Festival’s
Corazon de! Espantapajaros (2019) and rEvolver Festival’s Geologic Formations (2018), as well
as a forthcoming translation publication (Spanish to English) of Corazén del Espantapajaros by
Hugo Carrillo in the online journal Asymptote — Summer 2020 edition. Maria also blends her
artistic practice with community engaged arts, developing and delivering theatre workshops and
performance opportunities with local communities.

Lissa Neptuno - Carmen

Lissa is grateful to be part of B, especially during this time. Previous theatre credits include The
Trophy Hunt (November Theatre), Leap Playwriting Festival (Arts Club), Rot (VACT’s MSG
Lab), Fists (rEvolver Festival), and Dogfight (Semper Fi Collective). Actor/producer credits
include The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and The Nether for the
RedCurrant Collective, and the short film Beyond Saturn. Film and television credits include
Hekademia, Virgin River, The Good Doctor, Supergirl, Motherland: Fort Salem, and The
Murders. Lissa is a graduate of Studio 58, and dedicates this performance to her Irish lad.

Jivesh Parasram - Director

Jivesh is an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist and facilitator of Indo-Caribbean descent. His
work has toured nationally and internationally. Jiv is the founding Artistic Producer of Pandemic
Theatre. He became the Artistic Director of Rumble Theatre in the fall of 2018, following three
years as the Associate Artistic Producer at Theatre Passe Muraille. He was a member of the

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 3

Cultural Leader Lab with the Banff Centre and Toronto Arts Council. His public service work has
included collaborations with the Ad Hoc Assembly, The Canadian Commission for UNESCO
and acting as an artistic advisor to the National Arts Centre. Jiv has received numerous
recognitions for his contributions to the sector, including the Toronto Arts Council Emerging
Artist Award, two Harold Awards and a Herald Angel from the Edinburgh Festival as part of the
CanadaHub programming in 2018. His current cultural practice centres decolonization through
aesthetics.

Lili Robinson - Alejandra

Lili (she/they) is an actor, writer, and theatre maker based on the unceded territories of the
Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-VWaututh First Nations. Having recently finished a year as
Theatre Replacement’s Artistic Producer Intern, Lili is currently the Emerging Playwright in
Residence at Rumble, and a part of the Emerging Playwrights’ Unit at the Arts Club. Their debut
play, Mx, which they also performed in, was the recipient of the 2019 Fringe New Play Prize. Mx
went on to receive the Cultchivating the Fringe Award following its Fringe premiere, earning it a
spot in an upcoming season at The Cultch. Lili is honoured and grateful to be making theatre at
this time, in the company of such an incredible team.

Shanae Sodhi - Assistant Director

Shanae is a producer and director whose work is focused on Community Engagement and the
Intersectionality of identity, beliefs and experiences which help people to explore and express
the complexity of themselves. His producing work began at Studio 58 where he was one of the
establishing members and Lead Coordinator of the school's Student Diversity Committee. The
student-led group works to give strength to marginalized groups within theatre through offering
students tools and knowledge to engage conversations of diversity around them. Recently his
play, Mx by Lili Robinson, was the recipient of the 2019 Fringe New Play Prize and Cultchivating
the Fringe awards.

Christie Watson - Production Design

Christie has been the Managing Director for Rumble Theatre since 2018. He is honoured to
have the opportunity to steward such a reflexive and community engaged arts organization with
Jiv and Kellee. Over that past 20 years Christie has worked in many capacities in arts and
culture. Christie is passionate about design and has been exploring this interest at home and
work since he was a kid. As a designer for theatre, Christie has had the pleasure of working with
Theatre Replacement, Simon Fraser University, Studio 58, Caravan Farm Theatre, RADIX, The
Chop Theatre and Alley Theatre. Many thanks to the creative team of B for being so open to this
ever-evolving process and to Emelia, Arthur, and Obie for all your love and support.

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 4

ABOUT RUMBLE THEATRE
For nearly 30 years Rumble has operated as a chameleon in our local community, with a strong
priority on sector development. Though our artistic vision has morphed along with our
leadership since our inception, one of Rumble’s core aims has always been to respond to our
ecology using our infrastructure to enhance, strengthen, and develop the independent theatre
community in Metro Vancouver; located on the unceded and occupied territories of the Coast
Salish peoples of the xyme@kweyem (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), and Selilwetat
(Tsleil-VWaututh) Nations. In Fall 2018, Rumble entered a new vision led by a decentralized
leadership team: Jivesh Parasram (Artistic Director), Christie Watson (Managing Director) and
Kellee Ngan (Operations Director). We are committed to activating cross-sectoral discussion, to
collaborating, and to creating alternative models of presentation and production that support
engagement opportunities for under-represented communities in a larger national artistic
dialogue. Rumble aspires to build solidarity within an artistically driven, disruptive and decolonial
practice. rumble.org

RUMBLE STAFF & ASSOCIATES: Jivesh Parasram — Artistic Director | Christie Watson
Managing Director | Kellee Ngan — Operations Director | Shanae Sodhi — Assistant Artistic
Producer | Meredith Burney — Bookkeeper | Sena Cagla — SFU Intern | Howard Dai —
Documentation Assistant | Michael Groberman — Development Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Lyndsay Watson — President | Andrew Forshner — Vice-President |

Brian Radburn — Treasurer | Elizabeth Willoughby — Secretary | Amanda Lynne Ballard, Mat
Brechtel, Maryann Kempthorne, Sikee Liu, Paul Nixey — Directors at Large

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Rumble would like to thank: Antje Oegel and Bailey Williams at AO International, Guillermo
Calderén, William Gregory, Keltie Forsyth, the PL1422 family, the Rumble Board of Directors,
Ben, Bea & Felix Hart, Truong Nguyen, Tim Matheson, Tim Carlson & Theatre Conspiracy,
Emelia Symington Fedy, Obie & Arthur, Christine Quintana, Milton Lim, Kris Boyd & The Cutch,
Alistair Cook & Havana Theatre, Rashid & Fast Cell Repair.

Special thanks to Clayton Baraniuk & Electric Company Theatre for lending us their fancy
computer!

Carmen Aguirre would like to thank Monica Rumoroso, Juan Luis Marre, and Carmen
Rodriguez.

Lissa Neptuno would like to thank her family, Rumble Theatre, and her friends.

Rumble would like to acknowledge the support of our funders — Canada Council for the Arts,
British Columbia Arts Council, Province of British Columbia, City of Vancouver Cultural Services
— and of our media sponsor for B, The Georgia Straight.

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 5

Rumble would also like to thank our generous donors: Valeria Ascolese | Clayton Baraniuk &
Jason Dubois | Siobhan Barker | Erika Bardorf | Georgia Beaty | Franco Boni | Tim Carlson |
Maria Chau | Stephen Drover | Andrew Forshner* | Sarah Garton Stanley | Tamara Gorski |
GUNN Consultants | Stephen Heatley | Dr. S. Howard | ITMB Publishing Ltd | Laura Klaiman |
Susan & Steen Larsen — in memory of Elie Savoie | Vu Le | Sikee Liu* | Rebecca Low* | Kenji
Maeda | Nicole McLuckie | Maria Melititskaya | Gayle Murphy | Evan Murray | Hugh Nelson |
Kellee Ngan & Ben Hart | Rebekah Parker | Dawn Petten | Brian Radburn | Sammie Jo
Rumbaua | Kathryn Shaw | Maria Stanborough | Jan Stanley — in memory of John | Deb
Williams & Bruce Kennedy | Eric Wilson | Elizabeth Wong | Anon x3. *Monthly donor

Rumble Theatre presents B by Guillermo Calderén 6