There is one thing almost as much fun as going to see a play. According to some, it is even more fun than going to see a play: reading a play yourself. And then not by yourself, but with a few others. That you divide the roles and start reading aloud. Over a cup of tea, coffee or a glass of wine, you perform your own play. Without having to leave your house. Or sitting in the smell of your neighbour's perfume, or queuing for the cloakroom.
Annie M.G. Schmidt had a reading club, and I have a reading club. Mine consists of former members of the Leiden amateur theatre club Empire. For about 15 or 16 years now, we have been reading plays. Nice for the people whose busy jobs (school headmasters and an occasional top manager) mean they all can't go and see all the plays they want, let alone rehearse two nights a week themselves.
This time we read 1600: Battle of Nieuwpoort by Erik Snel. The play premiered in December, but will hopefully go on tour from the autumn. Deservedly so, as The Leiden Reading Club had an extraordinarily inspiring evening with the text, as did I myself previously.
Recently, we have agreed to read new Dutch plays with each other with some regularity. The texts are provided to us by Marlies Oele of IT&FB publishing house, which specialises in theatre texts and books on film and performing arts. We read the plays, we discuss them, and beyond that the world can decide if they want more from them.
I myself enjoy reading drama with a reading club so much that I hope the virus spreads. So here's an appeal: if you yourself have a club of friends with whom you read texts aloud as an enthusiast, be it poems, plays, operas or Ikea instructions: send in a video of your own reading session. If you have no video talent, you can have a story telling why I should come and watch and film.
Your recording will appear here on the site, and I'll briefly tell you a bit about who you are and what drives you. Idea?
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