With text, movement, actors, sets.
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...
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...
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...
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.
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,...
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....
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...
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...
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 giving up can become just as oppressive as keeping it.
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...
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....
The National Theatre will premiere Blueprint for an Even Better Life on 8 November 2014, which addresses, among other things, the position of artists in society. A theme that also featured in their recent Tasso, and in Toneelgroep Amsterdam's successful The Fountainhead. Is the subject of art back on the theatre agenda due to the changed cultural politics of the past...
Previously, her performance allowed her to think heartbreakingly through love, infatuation and heartbreak. Now her performance is about love in the broadest possible sense. Earlier, she made theatre in which she wrestled with questions. Now she shows that struggle much less and shares the answers she has found with the audience. Earlier, she could still claim...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Just one more point. Then we're almost through.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Continue quietly, we have until half past five.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We have a problem with real estate. A lot of inner cities are empty. Shop premises are empty, downtown office buildings are unrentable. What do the municipalities say? Put artists in them. Cost nothing, because for free rent they do...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Now on the role of cities. One of the reactions on our site is about the role of the randstad in cultural policy. Melle Daamen puts the primacy in the randstad, and goes further than the council in this.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'The council has no position yet.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'But there is something in the Culture Outlook. Cities form...
This Friday break on Radio Futura members of Dood Paard and tg STAN are pondering what art is, and how much it should cost.
Sunday is the Gala of Dutch Theatre. In a sober yet festive setting, the theatre sector celebrates the fact that it still exists. Quite an achievement, even if the minister doesn't think so. Be that as it may. We are going to present awards. And not Oscars, Olivers, or Césars, but Louis, Theo, Colombina and Arlecchino. How that came about? Tradition....
Drama reviews mainly fill a need among artists and journalists. Newspaper readers hardly use them. In London, this has been studied. Only 36 per cent of theatre-goers say they read reviews. Much more value fans place on tips from friends and family. Last Saturday at Amsterdam's De Balie debate centre, there was a discussion between theatre-makers,...
"Grand opening, right?" Jeffrey Meulman, the man who as director of the ailing Theatre Festival gave the word "inspired" a new dimension, was delighted. It was Thursday night, September 4, 2014. Shortly before, I had seriously considered jumping from the 1st balcony of the Stadsschouwburg, rather than applauding Tauerbach, the opening performance of The Theatre Festival. It is...
For the second consecutive year, the Festival of Early Music is organising a Laboratory, in which young creators can learn about their craft. This year's programme features Medea by Czech composer Georg Benda. This 'melodrama', an alternation of spoken text with music, was a resounding success at its premiere in 1775. Musicologist Jed Wentz and scholar Mary Helen Dupree revived it...
Declining visitor numbers, shrinking subsidies, impoverished programming: most Dutch theatres are struggling, research by NRC Handelsblad recently showed. Theatres welcomed 12 million visitors in 2012, according to NRC figures, a quarter less than in 2008. Festivals, on the other hand, are on the rise. More and more are being organised, and they are attracting more and more people - in total...
He is the greatest director in the Netherlands. But also the least honourable theatre-maker we know: Johan Simons. The man whose star has been rising since the 1980s is now in Munich. But he is not staying there. After putting the local company Kammerspiele even more firmly on the map internationally, he is looking for new challenges. Den Bosch earlier reported...
We are talking about the summer of 2015. Then Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role in Hamlet, to be seen at the Barbican Centre in London. For the show, which plays for 12 weeks, 214% more tickets have already been sold in the first few hours after ticket sales opened yesterday than for Jay Z and Beyoncé's tour, which is on the same...
Flemish actors can speak. Flemish actors usually don't need microphones to make themselves understood over a storm, or from 100 metres away in the open air. Charlotte Caeckaert is one such actress who can do all that, and such technique is a joy to witness. She also writes lyrics, and that's where things go a little wrong....
Two actors who, together with their director, want to create a performance about loss. Or rather: our fear of losing things, or people. The makers are not quite there yet, it turns out at Theatre Festival Boulevard. From numerous conversations with thinkers and (experiential) experts, they have distilled characters while improvising, which they - separated by a thick...
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