The return to downtown Bossche, the beautiful weather, 48,000 visitors to performances (37,000 tickets sold, 11,000 visitors to the free programme) and a total of 100,000 visitors to the festival crowned the 40th anniversary of Theatre Festival Boulevard. 'A homecoming experienced by the team, artists and visitors. The central location of the festival centre on the Parade...
Going over the edge, exploring and pushing boundaries, pushing the limits of bystanders' comprehension, performing feats no one expects. And seeing gnomes walking through a forest. Or reading things in water. Seeing half a boy save the world. The first 11 days of August 2024 were legendary, never to be forgotten. And all in the...
"How nice it would have been if, as a (male) viewer, I had really been taken out of my comfort zone by the fact that the anger was not so obviously played and commented on. How thought-provoking I would have been when they weren't making goofy faces at their Rudi Carell-German that - if implemented consistently - would have made me laugh....
The nice thing about festivals like Boulevard in Den Bosch is that after a few days, you automatically make connections between everything you experience. Not that everything starts to look alike, like in sport. There, a single chromosome or hundredth of a second determines the difference between world peace or the apocalypse. There, everything has to be so similar that over...
Right by St John's, next to the Tower Stage where Theatre Festival Boulevard holds its talk shows and free live concerts, is 'Tent Purple'. That tent is different, this year. Outside, kids in baggy trainers are doing break moves, inside it is steaming hot. For ten days, Tent Purple is Cypher HQ, the home of Bossche hip-hop and street culture, also known as...
Yesterday, someone from Amsterdam told me that he had long thought Boulevard was a provincial version of an Amsterdam rosé party: lots of conviviality, food, drink and mediocre art. Fortunately, after just one visit he was convinced that something has grown in Den Bosch over the past forty years that cannot be compared to other Dutch festivals. There...
This summer, the fortieth edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard will be celebrated in 's-Hertogenbosch, with new names and old acquaintances. For director-director Tessa Smeulers, this special anniversary year is a moment to change her tack. After 15 years, she will bid farewell to Boulevard on 1 September. Head and heart "For years, my head and heart have been linked to Theatre Festival Boulevard. With great...
This week, Fonds Podiumkunsten and the Province of North Brabant announced that Theatre Festival Boulevard will also receive subsidies for the next four years. On Wednesday 3 July, the Performing Arts Fund issued its advice on national cultural subsidies for the period 2025-2028. Theatre Festival Boulevard is extremely proud of the Fund's positive advice. Thank you to the committee who gave us...
The full programme of the anniversary edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard goes online today at noon. Regular ticket sales start Tuesday 25 June at noon. Friends of Boulevard can buy tickets as early as today. At the same time, the free Boulevard Magazine No 2 will be published, again with many background articles and interviews. Experiencing together Experiencing a spectacle together, which only exists in...
For four decades, 's-Hertogenbosch has turned into a lively stage for inspiring performances and encounters for 11 days in August. Ticket sales for the first fourteen performances of the anniversary edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard started today for Friends (on Tuesday 28 May for everyone). At the same time, the free Boulevard Magazine 1 with background articles and interviews will be published. Celebrating man Since 1985,...
In August, Theatre Festival Boulevard returns to the city centre of 's-Hertogenbosch. After three wonderful years in the Zuiderpark, the festival heart returns to the Parade. For the past three years, Boulevard built its festival heart in the Zuiderpark, with an annex on the Parade and performances right across the city. The renovation of Theater aan de Parade and the, by the...
The 39th edition of Theaterfestval has concluded successfully. The 11-day festival in 's-Hertogenbosch attracted around 90,000 visitors. This Boulevard was a celebration of what binds us as human beings: our desires, our bodies, our emotions. This Boulevard was about radical empathy. About learning to live together, understanding wordlessly, caring for each other and enjoying ourselves together. Strikingly frequent in this was the relationship between generations...
"I select dancers very carefully. I don't do auditions. I don't believe in anyone having to prove themselves in front of the others. So that's why I take quite a long time to choose who I want to work with. If I choose that person, we go for it 100%. No matter what." Corpus Criolla is a fascinating dance performance in which Caribbean...
A festival is still the best way to get acquainted with new art. Yesterday, after six days of persistent drizzle and torrential rain, the sun finally broke through over Bossche Zuiderpark. Bartenders who had spent the first few days getting used to quietly serving those few customers who braved the rain for a white wine (because it was summer...
In preparing my coverage of Theatre Festival Boulevard, I had also put 'interview with Elias de Bruyne' on my wish list. It didn't materialise, which is fortunate in retrospect, because Cornald Maas beat me to it. At least, Cornald Maas interviewed Elias de Bruyne during his performance 'Euhm... In 5 Acts', which premiered on Saturday 5 August. Well...
"You can't say anything anymore either" is the title of a show by theatre friends George and Eran from Amsterdam-West. They have previously presented sensitive themes in a theatre form close to stand-up comedy, and so this programme is about the language battle. A language battle about which words are still appropriate, which stereotypes are still 'allowed' and...
Yves Degryse is one of the people behind the extraordinary Flemish company Berlin. Between 2011 and 2015, Berlin worked on the performance Zvizdal, largely shot in the 'forbidden zone' around the exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. I saw the performance in 2016 in Den Bosch, during Festival Boulevard, and was 'blown away'. This year, it returns to Boulevard
Louis Janssens is a young, ambitious theatre-maker from Flanders. With a string of rave reviews behind his name, he seems to have effortlessly found his place in the theatre world. This year, he is a prominent guest at Theatre Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch. His latest play, 'Desire', will premiere at the Verkadefabriek on 3 August. The play highlights the delicate...
In recent years, Boulevard worked intensively within two networks with 20 European partner institutions on international cooperation within the performing arts, supported by 'Creative Europe'. Both projects are guests during this edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard, which can be called unique! Performing Gender - Dancing in Your Shoes celebrates its finale with the presentation of a number of community projects and a...
Theatre collective Thomas, Sacha and Jos creates performance about universal love After years of fruitful cooperation with master storyteller Toon Tellegen and several performances based on his work, theatre collective Thomas, Sacha and Jos will perform Two Little Old Ladies at this summer's Theatre Festival Boulevard. Tellegen's book consists of 43 love stories, each starring two little old ladies. Thomas, Sacha and Jos made a...
It's time to get puzzling: the full programme of Boulevard 2023 is available from now on. In addition, Boulevard Magazine 2 is also out, containing background articles, filters to help you choose and, of course, a look at this year's programme. Brain gymnastics Earlier, we already announced thirteen names and now you can find the complete programme....
It could be because of the weather, or my mood, but 2022 was one of the best editions of Theatre Festival Boulevard I have experienced in decades. From the interesting, and also a little disruptive opening to the final night, which I experienced yesterday, I saw guts, passion and pushed boundaries. Not everywhere all at once, but...
John Buijsman and Helmert Woudenberg make a very funny duo. Buijsman the archetypal Rotterdammer, certainly also in terms of tone of voice, but also the actor who is role-steady, playing distinct characters. In De Recreanten, a play he made for and about his own holiday resort in Hoek van Holland, he plays together with Helmert Woudenberg. The creator of continuous improvisation has a...
We take stock halfway through this edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch. Host Wijbrand Schaap does so together with Dana Kibbelaar, since this year a member of the two-headed management (with Tessa Smeulers), writer and journalist Jowi Schmitz, dance critic Helen Westerik, and makers Oscar Kocken and Jellie Schippers. We talk about what is so special about...
After nearly 30 editions, I finally had my Boulevard baptism of fire. And what a breath of fresh air it was. Audiences from 2 to 80, a festival terrain you can just stroll across without a ticket. Even better: a festival area where you can also watch acrobatics and dance on an outdoor stage without a ticket! I saw people walking their dogs and checking to see if there were any...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français