Skip to content

THEATER

With text, movement, actors, sets.

Contemporary trends in theatre and performance at Something Raw Festival 2016

Three mongols playing Mongols. Dschingis Khan, the opening performance of Something Raw, is provocative and consequential. With this performance by German theatre collective Monstertruck, or the also Berlin-based Man Power Mix by Sheena Mcgrandles and Zinzi Buchanan, the festival Something Raw lives up to its name. Something Raw is a festival in which Amsterdam theatres Frascati, De Brakke... 

Holland Festival 2016: urgent, challenging and inviting

Never before has the Holland Festival placed itself at the centre of society as it is today. The 2016 programme is steeped in the turbulent times in which we live. The Netherlands holds the presidency of the European Union this spring. Artistic director Ruth Mackenzie has taken this fact unflinchingly to give 'Europe' a wide place in the programming. In presenting... 

Stefan de Walle en Joris Smit (foto Kurt van der Elst)

The reviewer, for anyone whose flesh is occasionally weak

Anyone who wants to credibly transfer a historical play to the present had better be radical, director Theu Boermans must have thought. And anyone who sees his adaptation of Nikolaj Gogol's The Revisor at the Nationale Toneel cannot help but agree with him. With references to asylum seekers, cubicle snoopers, data espionage and subsidy fraud, the play seems written yesterday. Yet Boermans remains... 

Van Veen (vvd), Pechtold (d66) en Monasch (pvda) tijdens het begrotingsdebat cultuur

We were read in 2015: 300,000 visitors, a total of 10,000 hours of reading time.

Time for our success list. In 2015, we attracted 60,000 more visitors than in 2014. That's something to be proud of. A website that focuses on the stories that existing media find the small, and then figures like that. That we attracted those 300,000 visitors is one, that they spent an average of 2 and a half minutes per story,... 

The 10 theatre performances you wish you had seen in 2015

Although the supply has been declining for years, there are still more new shows than a person can see. So nobody sees everything, everybody misses a lot, which was the case in 2014. But these performances no one would have wanted to miss, even if two of them were not even seen in a theatre. And no dance, for that our partner was dance audiences this year too. #1... 

Nieuwpoort 05 © Sanne Peper _ Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Alum plays "1600, Battle of Nieuwpoort": promising start to historical series

Today it was announced that the Gijsbrecht tradition, revived since five years, will end again due to lack of subsidy. A shame, of course, although we don't have to mourn the end of this Amsterdam custom, which has existed since 1638. After all, the play is totally unplayable, historically completely off the mark and all in all a rather pretentious representation of the history of... 

Firma Mes - BOT (foto Joris Jan Bos)

BOT by Firma MES: delightful theatre for laughers and thinkers

'KUT TONEEL' has been spray-painted over BOT's poster. Another features penises and a clown's nose. Does Firma MES' new show arouse so much aggression? In any case, the young theatre company from The Hague promises us a play about "unkind people". But that doesn't quite pan out. On the flat floor of Theater aan... 

Theatre sector: "Municipalities, stop building theatres!"

Always nice when someone sets up a committee to solve all the problems. The Dutch theatre sector did just that a few months ago. Led by former minister Guusje Ter Horst, Rinda den Besten (former Utrecht alderman), Sadik Harchaoui (Forum) and Ryclef Rienstra (VandenEnde Foundation) examined what could be better in the relationship between theatre and the... 

The five shows you must see in December

The National Opera, Hänsel und Gretel (opera) It is the best-known fairy tale opera of all time. Not surprisingly, as Humperdinck's adaptation of Hansel and Gretel is overtly rooted in folk music as in almost Wagnerian orchestration. It was bound to be a success. Richard Strauss conducted the world premiere; Amsterdam features International Opera Award Winner Lotte de Beer's version. She moves... 

Hilversum municipality closes Achterom Theatre

Debby Petter's performance 'Bed & Breakfast' at Theatre Achterom in Hilversum had just ended. Director Gerlofke Hekelaar addressed the audience, as it had been the very last performance. After 45 years, the Achterom Theatre Foundation will cease to exist. Another theatre going under due to cuts in the cultural sector. But is lack of money the only... 

In the theatre, all fear disappears

I hesitated for a while whether to report on the theatre workshop offered to Syrian refugees by Koon Theatre on Monday 9 November, as part of Dancing on the Edge. During the workshop, the refugees prepared a short presentation to be shown in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht on Friday 13 November, prior to the theatre performance Above Zero. The reason... 

New: a Blab with playwright Nassim Soleimanpour.

Next week sees the start of festival Dancing on the Edge. Unlike its name suggests, this festival, with performances in The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, is not only about dance, but also about film, theatre and politics. The 'Edge' it is about, the festival looks for in its theme: an urgent artistic dialogue with the Middle East. More needed now than... 

Loïc Perela and Jan Martens: As a spectator, you are finally faced with a question again

As I wrote in my earlier article about the Nederlandse Dansdagen, choreographer Loïc Perela won this year's Nederlandse Dansdagen Maastricht Prize. It earned him 12,000 euros to put into his new project HASHTAG. The award has helped some previous winners on their way (Monique Duurvoort, Joost Vrouenraets, Erik Kaiel, Muhanad Rasheed, Joeri Dubbe,... 

Liesbeth Gritter creates 'through-composed' pop musical based on Top 2000

"It's all right." In how many songs of the Top 2000 does that phrase appear? Too many to mention. So now the task is to sing all those different "It's all right"'s in the melody in which every audience will recognise them. The four actors in 'Total Eclipse of The Heart' by Theatre Group Kassys fill a thick hour in this way.... 

Inequality and exploitation: from Genesis to today

At the Gala van het Nederlands Theater, she won the Colombina 2015 for best female contributing role, in Genesis. From this week, Antoinette Jelgersma, actress with the Nationale Toneel, plays in Ronald Schimmelpfennig's The Golden Dragon. From biblical history to life anno now - but there are more similarities than you might think. Jelgersma sits relaxed 

Berlin plays Tagfish, poetic documentary theatre about emptiness, and more emptiness

From today, the documentary performance Tagfish tours the Netherlands. The Belgian theatre collective Berlin has been making finely crafted theatre installations since 2004, playing on the border of documentary and fiction, television and theatre, current affairs and eternity. Tagfish is ostensibly about the perils surrounding the redevelopment of a piece of wasteland near Essen. Die Zeche Zollverein already had a monumental... 

The six shows you must see in October

Opera2Day, Mariken in de tuin der lusten (opera) The young The Hague company Opera2Day produces one splendid performance after another. But at the same time it does not rest on all its laurels, opting for adventure by presenting an entirely new opera together with the Nationale Toneel. At the centre is Mariken van Nieumeghen, the girl "who lived with the devil for seven years", the music is by Calliope Tsoupaki and... 

240 Getting adolescents to be quiet with Shakespeare? An instruction manual.

Many theatre practitioners secretly beg for the introduction of corporal punishment for schoolchildren with CKV. After all, schoolchildren with CKV are bent on ruining the lives of actors. They are assisted in this by disinterested teachers, who on their nights off are more concerned to please their pupils than the providers of culture. As a compromise, ... 

Eline Vere's wrong choices

Who has not read the book before, in Dutch at secondary school? Eline Vere, Louis Couperus' debut novel, is one of the classics of Dutch literature and was on the reading list for a long time. The novel, which appeared in 1888 as a serial in daily newspaper Het Vaderland, tells the story of Eline Vere, a 23-year-old woman from a well-to-do family, who longs... 

Matthijs Rümke (1954 - 2015): inspired and committed theatre talent will not go to waste

'Young people can very well decide for themselves where they want to go or not go. And it just so happens that most of the time it is not to the theatre. So what? That will come naturally. Young people make their own choices, and that more often includes a house party than a play. Dragging them inside is counterproductive. And above all, no compulsory book-list performance,... 

My Fringe 2015 in 3 performances

Those who do not want to open the theatre season in 'Black Tie' and with a gala would do well to go to the Fringe Festival. Already in its tenth year, the festival is bouncing in all directions, this year with 80 performances. Unselected, untamed and unjudged, as they call it themselves. In other words, sometimes you see something wonderful and sometimes you... 

The figures are in. And they don't say anything at all.

We had already announced it. This period is all about positive framing by the arts sector. Good news has to be spread, although people don't really know why. After all, there are no shareholders to be kept happy, only concerned art lovers. Enfin. On Wednesday 9 September, NRC journalist Daan van Lent presented the result of an investigation into the... 

Regulatory greed from distrustful government hits creative sector in the heart

It is most visible in the performing arts. Recently, a striking number of vacancies for 'business leader' have been appearing in the cultural sector. We put on some ears during the theatre festival, and then you hear something. Nobody wants to respond openly, the interests are too big and the reputations too vulnerable. We therefore sum it up here only roughly... 

And the 10,000 euros goes to... my brother!

It is prize season again in the cultural sector and that always brings fuss. Suspicions of rigging, nepotism, bribery. It's part of it, as is everyone doing their best to tell you that the jury chose completely objectively and independently. There is also a Cultural Governance Code for a reason, to prevent the small art world from having too little... 

Trench warfare between the Castellums of Utrecht and Alphen?

Today we reported on the opening in Utrecht Leidsche Rijn of the cultural park Castellum Hoge Woerd. In that Castellum is a new theatre: Podium Hoge Woerd. Explicitly, the theatre is not called Castellum. After all, there is already a Theatre Castellum in Alphen aan de Rijn that is 10 years old. Doesn't that bite? Yes, they do bite. Because the first visitors for... 

Small Membership
175 / 12 Months
Especially for organisations with a turnover or grant of less than 250,000 per year.
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
5 trial newsletter subscriptions
All our podcasts
Have your say on our policies
Insight into finances
Exclusive archives
Posting press releases yourself
Own mastodon account on our instance
Cultural Membership
360 / Year
For cultural organisations
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
10 trial newsletter subscriptions
All our podcasts
Participate
Insight into finances
Exclusive archives
Posting press releases yourself
Own mastodon account on our instance
Collaboration
Private Membership
50 / Year
For natural persons and self-employed persons.
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
All our podcasts
Have your say on our policies
Insight into finances
Exclusive archives
Own mastodon account on our instance
en_GBEnglish (UK)