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The great stories of Genesis: Johan Doesburg's farewell at the National Theatre

Adam and Eve. Noah. Babel. Joseph. An entire book of the Bible Johan Doesburg casts in his farewell performance with the Nationale Toneel. 'Genesis' lasts 6 hours including intermissions, has 65 speaking characters and plays with the space of Scheveningen's Zuiderstrandtheater. But above all, the outgoing director wants it to tell two stories. In conversation with Johan Doesburg and actor Dries Vanhegen, whose character Jacob plays a special role in the play.

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Ivo van Hove directs Bowie's The Man Who Fell To Earth II: Lazarus

Indeed, you couldn't release this message on 1 April, because nobody would have believed it. But it is coming, then. Bowie, The Musical. But from the man himself. Sort of. Ivo van Hove, the boss of Toneelgroep Amsterdam who is now more famous in America and England than in the Netherlands, is going to direct Lazarus. That's a new... 

Read More "Ivo van Hove directs Bowie's The Man Who Fell To Earth II: Lazarus

Why you should go to Snorder (while you still can)

The theatre project 'Snorder' once began as the soap opera that closed the long evenings at the festival Hollandse Nieuwe. A festival for new playwrights, first in theatre Cosmic, later in MC. Both Amsterdam theatres no longer exist in the meantime, neither does Hollandse Nieuwe. But director John Leerdam and his crew have now been given the space for a revival at de Balie.... 

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Do you still love me? Sanja Mitrovic

Football fans on stage? Sanja Mitrovic is a theatre-maker with a secret

Sanja Mitrović is a theatre maker with a theme and a secret. She builds on the theme with each performance. And the secret is right on the heels of her work. Her theme is the collective: how it grows, what it is based on, how deep the mutual love can be, how the euphoria can turn into rage, how it comes from within... 

Read More "Football fans on stage? Sanja Mitrovic is a theatre-maker with a secret

Groningen finds ideal troubleshooter for Grand Theatre crisis

They couldn't have picked a better time, there in Groningen. Because who do you call, when an overambitious theatre director has just blown the coffers of the once illustrious Grand Theatre dry, a Supervisory Board has been napping and then 22 people have been sacked because the money has run out? Then you're looking for someone with experience of that. Preferably... 

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Grand Theatre disaster update: Performing Arts Fund saves creators from bankruptcy

The misery in Groningen is a bit bigger than we thought. Meanwhile, the Grand Theatre appears to be at least 250,000 in the red. And counting. Money that the theatre subsidised by the city of Groningen owes mainly to artists. Choreographer Dunja Djocic, for instance, had received €90,000 in subsidies to create performances at the Grand for 2 years. Theatre-maker Andreas Denk had received... 

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Koefnoentheater by Mugmetdegoudentand needs more than just current affairs

Topicality is back in the Dutch acting scene for a while, and that is quite nice. De Verleiders, once started as a one-off play about fraudulent bosses by George van Houts, is now growing into a voluminous series. On TV, we have the series De Fractie, which manages to recreate the news of the day every episode in... 

Read More "Koefnoentheater by Mugmetdegoudentand needs more than just current affairs

The Great War Machine and Swamp Club: contemporary activist theatre

In early March, The Great War Machine, director Joachim Robbrecht's new play, premiered at Theater Frascati. A week earlier, the Rotterdam Schouwburg showed Swamp Club, by French director Philippe Quesne. Both performances address the current political climate. Whereas Swamp Club is explicitly silent about the world it calls into question, The Great War Machine is instead a rhetorical spectacle, constructed from quotes from TEDtalks. Both performances show mech...

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Amsterdam theatre duo doubly nominated for UK awards

Will Ivo and Jan join this impressive list? Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Joan Littlewood, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Peggy Ashcroft, Harold Pinter, Peter Hall, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Ayckbourn, Maggie Smith, Gillian Lynne and Michael Frayn. All big names of British theatre. International celebrities, all of whom have been awarded an Olivier, say the British... 

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Lanoye's Shakespeare adaptation voted best playable Dutch play

100 Dutch plays were presented to them, the 224 Dutch heavy users of our theatre seats who took part in a survey by the Amsterdam Institute for Theatre Studies. Plays that ranged from fairly well-known, such as Herman Heijermans' 'Op Hoop van Zegen' from the beginning of the last century and Joost van den Vondel's 460-year-old tragedy 'Lucifer', to completely unknown, such as... 

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The five shows you must see in March

Toneelgroep Oostpool, Angels in America (stage), playlist
To call the epic about America in the AIDS era a modern classic is an understatement. Since 1993, the play has been performed all over the world with great success. HBO turned it into a disappointing miniseries, Péter Eötvös a completely unsuccessful opera. Toneelgroep Amsterdam recently celebrated triumphs as far away as New York with a five-hour version stripped to the bone, partly prompting 'Meppel-gate'. Director Marcus Azz...

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It's the tone, idiot! 4 Reasons why 'Heart' is a show you should go see

The play 'Heart' is one for your bucket list. In other words, the play 'Heart', created by Matzer Theatre Productions as an adaptation of Lisette Lewin's book 'Heart of Barbed Wire', is a play you really must have seen. Why? I'll give you 4 reasons why. 1: The book is no longer for sale Lisette Lewin wrote a book in 1992 that... 

Read More "It's the tone, idiot! 4 Reasons why 'Heart' is a show you should go see
dance Private Odyssey

I never felt so much loneliness and space as with My Private Odyssey

Homer's epic Odyssey tells of Odysseus' journey home. For centuries, the story has roamed the world. Each time it was different people who heard or read it. The story took on new colours, accents, interpretations that Homer could not have imagined. And now there is My Private Odyssey by Club Guy & Roni and tanzmainz. This dance and... 

Read More "I never felt so much loneliness and space as with My Private Odyssey

Super-sympathetic performance by Phillipe Quesne: Next Day

The children introduce themselves one by one. They build sets, make music and play scenes. A catastrophe is imminent. They speculate loosely: will it be a nuclear or biological attack, a plane or a missile, a tsunami or a bombing? In Next Day, shown last weekend at Theatre Frascati, they rehearse an attack by 'aliens'. That... 

Read More "Super-sympathetic performance by Phillipe Quesne: Next Day

DUS is now called Theatre Utrecht. Not to be confused with Stadsschouwburg Utrecht

Toneelgroep Centrum, Utrechtse Theater Inititatieven, Jeugdtheaterplatform Utrecht, Theaterplatform Utrecht, De Paardenkathedraal, De Nieuwe Paardenkathedraal, De Utrechtse Spelen. The ostentatious names for Utrecht theatre companies had run out of steam over the past 30 years. Not entirely unexpected, then, that the city theatre company of the Netherlands' fourth city opts for sobriety and clarity. Since Sunday 11 January, 5pm, De Utrechtse Spelen has been called... 

Read More "DUS is now called Theatre Utrecht. Not to be confused with Stadsschouwburg Utrecht
Copyright: Erik Bindervoet

The five theatrical performances you want to see in January 2015, and you already have to head back to the province

After the annual lists, the recommendations for the new year. All dailies participate in it. Problem: much is not yet known. Festivals and companies present their programmes sometime in February, March. So we cannot yet give the tips for the whole of 2015. But we do have the tips for the coming month, in chronological order, because ranking performances we still have to... 

Read More "The five theatrical performances you want to see in January 2015, and you already have to head back to the province
Photo: Monique van de Wijdeven

The 10 theatre performances you actually wanted to see in 2014, even if you had to leave Amsterdam for half of them

It's raining annual lists and we're merrily joining in. As subjective as anyone, after all, no one sees everything, and opinions on taste can always differ. Of course, also in this list many performances in or from the Randstad, but half of them were not yet shown there. And all genres mixed together. As long as it is theatre. With the only limitation: no repeats, apologies Ring and Lohengrin (DNO), St John Passion (NRO). And no dance, because for that our partner dance audience. 

Read More "The 10 theatre performances you actually wanted to see in 2014, even if you had to leave Amsterdam for half of them

The Hague takes the lead in rejuvenating theatre landscape: De Vroedt not going to Rotterdam

Eric de Vroedt will succeed Theu Boermans at the Nationale Toneel in The Hague in 2018. The company announced this in a press release today. This puts an end to speculation surrounding the future of theatre-maker De Vroedt. Indeed, he had long been mentioned as Alize Zandwijk's successor at the ro Theater in Rotterdam,... 

Read More "The Hague takes the lead in rejuvenating theatre landscape: De Vroedt not going to Rotterdam

Open, flexible and on top of everything: 9 expected and unexpected tasks for the theatre of the future

What does the theatre of the future look like? That question Odeon De Spiegel Theatres posed to the FMT Workforce, the online brainstorming environment of our partner Fast Moving Targets. We also brought the message here. Odeon and De Spiegel are two theatres in Zwolle. Well-run theatres, but always looking for the new opportunities offered by new technologies and developments.... 

Read More "Open, flexible and on top of everything: 9 expected and unexpected tasks for the theatre of the future
Stefan de Walle and Ariane Schluter in Friday, photo Kurt van der Elst

Living on with indigestible guilt to each other's ruined existence: National Theatre plays Hugo Claus' Friday

Georges Vermeersch comes home early from prison, where he was serving a sentence for incest with his daughter Christiane. In the meantime, his wife Jeanne has had a child by younger neighbour Erik. So how to move on? Casper Vandeputte directed an intense, haunting version of Hugo Claus' play Friday at the Nationale Toneel. Lead actors Stefan de... 

Read More "Living on with indigestible guilt to each other's ruined existence: National Theatre plays Hugo Claus' Friday

Google and facebook take over role of galleries, publishers and impresarios

For most artists, it is an ideal. Being represented by a gallery. Writers have their sights set on a contract with a publisher. Musicians eye labels eagerly and theatre-makers queue up for an impresario. Creators have a love-hate relationship with such intermediaries. Because while the average creative professional would be willing to spare a toe in exchange... 

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Keeping is no good, throwing away is wrong: comical lesson in self-reflection from Firma MES

Twenty-five per cent of people have a room they can no longer enter because it is too full of stuff. This is oppressive and it is no wonder that some resort to the other extreme: radical consumerism. In TROEP, theatre group Firma MES follows Barbara, a woman who wants to live with no more than eight objects. Just like Buddhist monks. This results in a delightful, witty play that is seriously thought-provoking and shows how renouncing is just as bekl...

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Maas Theatre and Dance's Greeks: compelling and bewildering for young and old alike

First story. A naked king crawls at the feet of a woman. She is much taller than him, a goddess. High above him, she holds a bunch of grapes in her hand. Hungry he is! He wants those grapes, all of them. His body is vulnerable. It seems to shiver in the open air. But when it comes to the coveted food, he fetches... 

Read More "Maas Theatre and Dance's Greeks: compelling and bewildering for young and old alike

Meppelgate! (2): Living in Meppel is also a choice.

You could wait for it. Meppelgate. Marieke Heebink, top actress with Toneelgroep Amsterdam, had the audacity to say in the newspaper that she is happy to be in a sold-out 'Angels in America' in New York. "Thank God I don't have to go to Meppel" she says. Aj. Aj. How dare she! That is guaranteed to generate angry reactions. And not just from Meppel.... 

Read More "Meppelgate! (2): Living in Meppel is also a choice.

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