The ANP brought it and all newspapers typed it up: 'Amsterdam gets a City playwright'. Big news, of course. After all: the theatre is rather under pressure as an expensive left-wing hobby, so it would be nice if the Amsterdam city council had decided, together with the theatre world, to establish a city playwright, alongside the city poet and the poet of the fatherland, An honorary title, you might think, deserved after a lifetime of toiling to deliver high quality theatre prose. We wondered who it would be: Rob de Graaf? Ger Thijs? Ton Vorstenbosch?
Anyway, we can't blame you if you have never heard of Jedidijah Julia Noomen, but she has been given the honour of becoming Amsterdam's city playwright. Well, it's actually different: the Utrecht-based writer's training programme College of Arts Graduate Jedidjah coined the term herself, discovered that no one had yet claimed the internet address and came up with a plan that was to cost 10,000 euros. And so we are going to crowdfund that in a very modern way. On the site 'fordekunst.co.uk' is now on offer to the Amsterdam city playwright. The fund promises to put 2,500 euros into the pot in advance. Remains: 7500 euro, to be paid by the 'crowd'. For that relatively low amount, she is already offering Amsterdam 2 of the 12 plays she eventually wants to write and perform in a different district of the city each time.
No further business plan or budget can be found on the site. Law states that for a contribution of 2,000 euros, you get a performance or play as a gift.
All in all, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts likes the idea. We expect that there will also be a place for the Amsterdam City Playwright in The National Theatre Week.
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But surely this self-appointed urban playwright is a typical case of the entrepreneurship encouraged these days? An artist not dinging for recognition in the traditional forums, but setting up her own toko and seeing how far she gets? A good hack you might call it, space included, from someone who has nothing to lose. Art-making and playwriting are not protected professions, it is what the fool, the arts council and the crowd give for it. Marketplace as a subsidy channel. Neighbourhood writers offer themselves, poets compete for the highest bidder of all. So You Think You Can Write.
Incidentally, an interesting blank has been added on the crowdfunding site. It now refers to a 'city playwright'. So with this, the creator admits that 'city playwright' was rather premature. The escape via downgrading to city drama writer comes a bit late. In these times when cultural creators are distrusted by politicians and the public, this kind of deception is extremely undesirable.
By the way: to be continued, and through this channel, which was the only one that could be found by me through search engines in terms of back-typing vs. national over-typing.
As of today (we write 4 October), the AFK has distanced itself from the term "city playwright", which was claimed by the writer in question. Don't memorise that name, because it turns out she herself sent out the press releases that the national press typed over almost in full. The AFK was approached at the time with critical questions about the phenomenon but ignored them. If only they had done so, because now that the trade magazine TheaterMaker has included the term in its October issue in its section Chair Dance and questions have arisen about it, the AFK has been approached about the how and why. So now the AFK is a bit more forthcoming in its reservations about the terminology used. Exit this writer, who has tried to play herself into the cultural spotlight with this. The opposite is the result, namely thickly salivating ´galore´. Typical case of an unhappy marriage between ambition and failing insight into one's own abilities. A phenomenon of self-indulgence as a textbook example of how not to do it.
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