Skip to content

rotterdam theatre

The best woman in the best place: Ellen Walraven director Rotterdam Schouwburg

This was a possibility not many people initially thought of. After all, after her tropic years as director of the Amsterdam debating centre De Balie, Ellen Walraven was in need of some more substantive work and peace and quiet on her mind, So we suspected she would stay on in her new position as dramaturge with the country's first company Toneelgroep Amsterdam for a while. But apparently - and not entirely unexpectedly - she did not like working under Ivo van Hove as much as she liked the mog...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Theatres take matters into their own hands

As the government has killed the entire circuit of production houses and further education, seven theatres have jumped into the gap. They are joining forces to enable a number of 'young' makers to still develop their work. By buying a number of performances in advance and making a small development budget available, the seven of them can put two makers to work per season.

It involves The Rotterdam Theatre, Frascati in Amsterdam

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Rotterdam Theatre: more music, more visitors

Everywhere, arts attendance is falling dramatically, except, for now, in Rotterdam. There, the Rotterdamnse Schouwburg managed to keep the number of paying visitors the same, or even increase slightly to over 147,500, in its first real cultural disaster year 2012. In its own press release, the management (currently in the hands of Jan Zoet) attributes this to sharper programming and revivals of successful productions, and an increase in the number of concerts:

"There has been critical scrutiny naa...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

VVD gets it right: theatre closed for two days

Quite a few VVD people were angry with us, because last year we caught the Rotterdam alderman for culture in a silly trick: she claimed that cultural institutions did not have to open during the week at all, because hardworking people only had time for art in the weekend anyway. In doing so, she flattened out schools, tourists, old people and part-time workers from the possibility of enjoying art on their own time, and thus also closed off the possibility of art institutions to open on a n...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Nearly dies Wunderbaum's Detroit Dealers from an overdose of ideas, but survives through unexpected musicality #HF12

In Detroit Dealers, Wunderbaum mixes a personal family story with the decline of Detroit, once one of the most influential industrial cities in the world, and philosophical musings on the car, as a romantic metaphor of progress and the American Dream. The show swings in all directions. Detroit Dealers is part documentary film, jazz concert, performance, spoken word poetry, rap battle, and theatre. This overdose of... 

Halbe Zijlstra has made history.

After the presentation of the Rotterdam and The Hague arts advisories, and a few days to weeks before the harsh judgements of the Culture Council, and a few months before the scathing reports of the Performing Arts Fund, it is starting to become clear how drastically the Dutch cultural sector is being hit by the Rutte administration's cuts. Halbe Zijlstra has ensured that his cut of 25% to the entire sector, and up to 50% to the performing arts, has become law.

A personal o...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Daily news: Sale in Rotterdam, protests in Amsterdam and an arts centre closes in the south

Culture sector signs agreement on youth pass Eight umbrella organisations in the culture sector signed a covenant on Wednesday advocating the continued existence, albeit in modified form, of the Culture Card. It should remain free, but will henceforth only give discounts on cultural outings. The 15-euro credit will disappear because the state will no longer provide subsidies. Instead, students in the... 

Progress news: Give Act no more for culture, Utrecht more expensive and Purmerend stops all subsidies

Lower House approves Tax Plan 2012 (...) Furthermore, the adjusted Giving Act was also passed. The 7 million euro tax support shifts from cultural institutions to sports and music associations. Source: Belasting.nl 18 Nov 11 Utrecht - Culture may cost something - by Wouter de Heus (...) this week, when I finally saw the renewed operating plan for the Music Palace in... 

We say goodbye to a festival that was once again unique. For the last time? #decision

Image via Wikipedia There was a time, when art did not have to draw full theatres to still be accepted by the population. After all, out of a municipality's total budget, something like art costs no more than a penny, so it doesn't make you worse off, while at best it can only make you better off... 

Sarah Moeremans camps out at the theatre and shows young actors all over it during #dekeuze

Director, actress and theatre designer Sarah Moeremans is holding office in the lobby of the Rotterdam Schouwburg for a year. Titled "My First Camp", she has moved into the front hall to be more in touch with the various users and visitors in the building and the world around it. Has the public space become a wilderness, which... 

"Talkshow" by artist Miet Warlop and film scholar Hilde D'haeyere is an overly noncommittal slapstick collage #dekeuze

She bends over. A huge wooden shot thunders over film scientist Hilde D'haeyere around and smashes against the playing floor. She stays alive through a recess in the wood. Unperturbed, she springs up and continues reading from her essay: a scholarly treatise on function of slapstick in the silent films of Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, as well as in the work of visual artist cum theatre maker Miet Warlop.

15,000 burger buns set a fitting stage for typically Spanish Golgotha Picnic #International Choice

  Spain and God. The two have had something in common for a long time. And to outsiders, not always in a positive sense. Spaniards invented the Inquisition and converted the entire native population of South America to the eternal hunting grounds. When artists delve into the relationship between supreme being and Spaniard, it also quite often produces confrontational works. Take... 

Rebellion and resignation hand in hand during beautiful opening weekend The International Choice at Rotterdam Theatre #hechoice

Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the... 

Pollesch and Hinrichs turn opening night The Choice into a theatrical philosophical happening #The International Choice

For the opening night of The International Choice, the Rotterdam Schouwburg was briefly transformed into Berlin's Volksbühne. The same black plastic rags on the walls, the same ugly yellow front curtain and - most strikingly - the seats in the auditorium have been replaced by white beanbags. Those beanbags, by the way, are widely despised and mocked in Berlin. They should... 

Festival 'The International Choice' opens as it should: abrasive, confrontational and tad disturbing #thechoice

photo Abdelsalam Moussa Strange how quickly history detaches itself from your memory. We had gradually come to think here that the camping riot in Cairo's Tahrir Square was some kind of summer of love. That everyone there was cramming roses into cannon shells, singing together, and that the whole world was just for giving each other love and hugs. Time for a... 

Rotterdam Theatre's International Choice has always been a personal choice

Annemie Vanackere Last year it was still about 'a sense of belonging': the ability to feel at home somewhere, to know you belong somewhere. This year, the motto of the quirky Rotterdam festival De Internationale Keuze is almost diametrically opposed to that: parallel reality. Instead of one place offering warmth, the festival now says that those... 

The Dodo revives for Holland Festival edition 2011 #HF11

This week the Holland Festival erupts and we are there. We are producing a Dodo Festival Day newspaper with a sizeable team of professional journalists, as we did before for Springdance and The International Choice of the Rotterdam Schouwburg, for example. We follow the festival closely to bring news as it happens. We go to see performances where others... 

National Travel Opera possibly first victim of culture cuts

The rapid austerity operation of at least 200 million on the cultural sector has yet to be fleshed out, but one thing is already clear. If it were up to state secretary Halbe Zijlstra, the National Reisopera, which operates from Enschede, would stand a good chance of being killed in that operation. His request for advice to the Culture Council, sent the week before Christmas, states the following:... 

GDMW: Seven learning moments about literature, Rotterdam, Utrecht and partying

GDMW festival comes from the tube of the only literary magazine still doing a bit in the Netherlands: Passionate Magazine. A bit contrary, youthful but not juvenile and with an open eye to the many cultures in the city where it was founded: Rotterdam. The festival is a happy combo of literary content, happy poets, embarrassing displays and beer,... 

Free search for the differences between a lamp at the Rotterdam Schouwburg

Incandescent bulbs are also out of the question in theatres. Plays, musicals and concerts will soon all have to switch to "sustainable" lighting. And, just as this affects the atmosphere in the living room, it also affects the atmosphere on stage: sustainable light has completely different colour values than old-fashioned light. Lighting designers have been complaining about this for some time. But how... 

French theatre nerds do droll version of the Big Bang at reopening Rotterdam Schouwburg

Ok, a few people might have been a tad disappointed. Who had hoped that Rotterdam's theatre would reopen with real bang, after the extremely successful upgrade of the interior by scrap artist Jan Versweyveld (suspended ceiling, marble and carpet on the stairs). But that, of course, cannot happen. After all, the Rotterdam Schouwburg only does bangers when International Choice boss Annemie Vanackere is there... 

Getting a whiff of Lotte van den Berg's special approach, fresh back from Africa

What she does is vulnerable to the point of confrontation. Theatre-maker Lotte van den Berg has such a personal view of the world that, outside the safe context of theatre, it can come across as absurd. Or alienating. On Sunday 26 September, she returned with the members of her Dordrecht-based location theatre company OMSK back from a four-month stay in the Congo capital Kinshasa. A full house in Rotterdam's Gouvernestraat then got to be there when they unpacked their bags a few hours after landing.

'House without a maid' at Huis Sonneveld inspiring microcosm of light and space #dekeuze

An intimate living room conference among living works of art. That is the best way to describe 'House without a maid, a "conversation, performance and installation project" by Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony at Huis Sonneveld. In the former garage of the 1932 modernist villa, a select group of women gathered for two days to discuss the phenomenon of the maid. In other rooms of the imposing... 

Polyphonic 'Deserve' stunningly profound composition about service #dekeuze

'So, Dr Lacan, are women more susceptible to madness? ... Is the man susceptible to hysteria?' In 'Deserve', part of Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony's triptych about the maid, the makers dig deep, very deep. They follow the intriguing line of the great debunkers in our history of thought: from Hegel's master-slave analysis through Marx and Freud to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Core of... 

Private Membership (month)
5 / Maand
For natural persons and self-employed persons.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Own mastodon account
Access to our archives
Small Membership (month)
18 / Maand
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of less than €250,000 per year
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
All our podcasts
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Posting press releases yourself
Extra attention in news coverage
Large Membership (month)
36 / Maand
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of more than €250,000 per year.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Share press releases with our audience
Extra attention in news coverage
Premium Newsletter (substack)
5 trial subscriptions
All our podcasts

Payments are made via iDeal, Paypal, Credit Card, Bancontact or Direct Debit. If you prefer to pay manually, based on an invoice in advance, we charge a 10€ administration fee

*Only for annual membership or after 12 monthly payments

en_GBEnglish (UK)