Theatre festival Boulevard is going ahead this summer, just like last year. Everything is adapted to 'corona': safe at one-and-a-half metres, placarded, with registration for catering, but still just about a hundred performances. In this podcast, I speak to Nina Aalders and Tessa Smeulers, responsible for Boulevard's programming. They remained at the helm after beloved and celebrated festival director Viktorien van Hulst left this year as she took a job as director of the Performing Arts Fund.
Nina: 'When someone who has been so important to the festival leaves, you feel all sorts of things, but we have also learnt how firmly the festival stands by now, even in such a storm as the one we are in now.'
Perfect Storm
And it was a 'perfect storm, we can say. It came from all sides. Not only did the director leave, but the festival heart disappeared. And Corona has been around for another year and a half.
Tessa: 'Our regular designer, Theun Mosk, has been thinking with us about how best to relate to our new place, in the Zuiderpark. That it's inviting and that we don't deny the nature we're in. We succeeded. It looks insane.'
Everything must be at one-and-a-half metres. So no bus tours with that cute Frits, but everything by bike. In the halls, no full rows, but seats. Could regular theatre learn something from you?
Nina: 'We are a festival. We have to reinvent ourselves every year. Now to have empty seats like in the theatre felt to us like business as usual. After all, we didn't think it was usual what we have had to deal with this year. We also have to deal with makers making for certain locations. It's a balancing act between different interests, but this year was extra so. We encounter new challenges every week.'
Tessa: 'It's organising a festival in the middle of a natural disaster. Nothing is business as usual. That hard work also needs a reward. That we can keep going is so special. We all stand at the opening a pot of giggles.'
Allies
How does that actually work, programming a festival during lockdowns and quarantine?
Nina: 'We didn't know at the beginning of the year what we could do. We couldn't go looking either, and mostly had a lot of conversations. Sometimes we then still had to cancel. There were also rehearsals planned in Germany, which we had to stop. That was not about small venues, but also about the big productions. We took risks that it is impossible to imagine have succeeded, such as Joseph Toonga coming from England. But at the same time, the big production of Artemis was cancelled because it was rehearsing in Germany.'
Tessa: 'Creators were also reluctant to come up with performances for large audiences. We had to trust many people in long conversations.'
Nina: 'You kind of get used to really not knowing, this year.'
Tessa: 'Only thanks to your allies can you stay afloat in these times.'
So how it all worked out: listen to this podcast. And just go see it in Den Bosch. It's possible. It's safe. It's worth the effort.
If this link does not work properly: listen on spotify.
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