Viktorien van Hulst is leaving Theatre Festival Boulevard.

After more than six years as director, Viktorien van Hulst is leaving Stichting Theaterfestival Boulevard 's-Hertogenbosch and Stichting Bosse Nova. She will start on 1 July as director-director at the Fonds Podiumkunsten, where she will succeed Henriëtte Post. The Performing Arts Fund supports all forms of professional performing arts on behalf of the central government and has an annual budget of 62 million euros available for this purpose. Peggy Olislaegers (1966), former director of Nederlandse Dansdagen, will act as interim director for the 2021 festival. 

Mieke Geeraedts, chairman of the Supervisory Board: "We will miss Viktorien as a figurehead of our festival and inspired advocate of the performing arts and its role in society. We expect her to make her contribution to this in The Hague with the same energy. We thank Viktorien for her work. The strong organisation she leaves behind gives us great confidence for the future".

Over the past six years, Theatre Festival Boulevard strengthened its name as a festival where current developments in the performing arts are shown to a wide audience. Under Viktorien's leadership, the festival initiated intensive artistic collaborations with its immediate surroundings and became active in international networks, including within two major Creative Europe-supported projects. In addition, partly due to its move to its own premises with rehearsal studios, the festival put even more emphasis on talent development. In 2020, Boulevard won the Prize of Criticism for its special edition 'Afzender Boulevard', praising Viktorien for her commitment to the position of Dutch performing arts festivals. Viktorien sees the start of the new arts planning period with the multi-year plan positively received by the state, province and municipality as a good time to hand over the baton.

Viktorien van Hulst: "It has been my incredible pleasure to realise six festival editions with the amazing team of Theatre Festival Boulevard. I am proud of the shared daring to pioneer, the collaboration with many artists in the Netherlands and abroad, and the work we were able to produce and present. I thank the many partners, subsidisers, Friends and volunteers for the trust and fine cooperation and the Boulevard audiences for their commitment and enthusiasm."  

Interim management

Peggy Olislaegers (1966), former director of Nederlandse Dansdagen, will serve as interim director for the 2021 festival. Peggy works for several leading institutions in Europe, where she provides artistic and strategic advice to leaders in the performing arts. At the request of the Supervisory Board of Theatre Festival Boulevard, she is exploring a new management/board model for Boulevard, appropriate to the festival's mission, environment and ambitions and to today's times. The course set in recent years and the strength of Boulevard's team will be central to this.

Edition 2021

Theatre festival Boulevard recently announced that a new festival centre will be set up in the Zuiderpark in Bossche in 2021 and that the festival will be extended by a week. Boulevard 2021 will take place from 5 to 22 August.