‘With few tickets remaining, a performance in a beautiful tradition of dance and ballet, a Nutcracker this time, ‘bringing my ‘last sold-out, I changed my mind on the 23rd of my last 15,000-day month of directing’. So emphasizes Bas Schoonderwoerd (67) on Facebook on December 23rd. He’s been counting down the entire month of December. Every day I posted a message about what I was doing and what I was thinking.
It finished on December 31st, the day he finally retired. This also ended the career of the longest serving theater director in the Netherlands. One of the best and ubiquitous, if you believe his colleagues. Schoonderwoerd spent 28 of those 41 years in South Limburg. There he was managing director of the Parkstad Limburg Theaters (PLT), the Heerlen and Kerkrade theater halls, until three days ago.
He began his career at Schouwburg Gouda, later becoming director of Schouwburg Cuijk, Theater Agnietenhof Tiel and Parkstad Limburg Theaters (PLT). He considers the 1998 merger of the theaters Kerkrade and Heerlen into PLT as his most important achievement. The Kerkrade Theater used to be a bit weak, but after the merger the number of visitors quadrupled and increased structurally by 100,000 for the two theaters together – PTL now has between 250,000 and 300,000 visitors a year. Together, the theaters have five auditoriums, ranging from 148 to 1,103 seats. There are 135 permanent employees, including eight programmers.
Theaters have different seats than cinemas, says Schoonderwoerd. He explains: ‘Cinemas have seats, theaters have active seats. At the cinema you lie down, at the theater you sit straight, you have to be with him, participate». In his career he has always tried to lead his audience by the hand. “Why the hell are you going to Heerlen? There is no culture there,’ colleagues said of him when he moved from Tiel to Limburg. Heerlen and Kerkrade weren’t exactly cultural hotspots at the time, but Schoonderwoerd and his team boosted cultural life.
Cultural Spring
The vibes in the city, that’s important. With dance festivals like Schrittmacher and Euregio Dans, the Cultura Nova summer festival, Orlando Chamber Music Festival, with big orchestras like Philharmonie Zuid playing in Heerlen and co-producing shows like pink pop yes emma (on the history of mining), together with Cultura Nova and Toneelgroep Maastricht.
Schoonderwoerd: ‘Cities exist by virtue of shared histories. In the 1960s Heerlen built the largest stage in the Netherlands with the same programming. Subsequently, the closure of the mine proved to be the cause of much suffering. At the turn of the century, our cities recognized that rebuilding begins with who and what we are. This is, above all, our common culture. This has created an extraordinary cultural spring here, where we have worked towards a more confident, prouder and, above all, more resilient community.’
Schoonderwoerd is not a theater director who chooses his office variety shows and then neatly organizes his season. He is a welcome guest at previews, often talks to producers and theater companies about their plans, knows what’s going on in the countryside and in politics, and has organized a number of festivals, partnerships and special theater productions. Don’t give it the ‘something for everyone’ formula that is used in many theaters (lots of cabaret, musicals, popular plays and shows, a little theater and dance). He prefers adventure. He firmly believes in creating a connection between the theatrical offer, the theaters themselves and the audience.
‘I’m glad I attended a conference six months ago august oklahoma by Toneelgroep Maastricht. That play can be seen with us in 2023. This way, I know in advance what the audience can expect and how we can convey it. I also find it interesting to know now what a company like Het Nationale Theater intends to do in three years’ time.
Guest at your own theatre
Actors and artists often say that the hospitality of Dutch theaters leaves much to be desired. There are countless stories of the technician on duty who lets artists in when they arrive and they can get a cup of coffee from the machine. “I don’t know if that’s true, but it seems a bit over the top to me,” says Schoonderwoerd. ‘In any case, we are fighting for the human dimension here. There were times when I shook hands with all the NDT dancers to make them feel welcome. Obviously I couldn’t be there every evening, but there were always colleagues who assured me a good welcome, because it’s important.’
On December 31st at 18:17, Bas Schoonderwoerd posted his last message as director on Facebook. In it he warmly welcomes his successor, Janine Dijkmeijer (until last year managing director of the Nederlands Danstheater), who is fully convinced that the South Limburg theater has a bright future ahead of it. From now on, Bas Schoonderwoerd will be a guest in his theater.
On January 16, a farewell evening will be organized for you. ‘I look forward? No not yet. Am I glad it’s all over? No, certainly not. I was allowed to fill this role here at an important time junction. I will be happy to receive praise on behalf of the whole team and at the end of the night I will pay a deep bow to all who are due.”
Networkers
Bas Schoonderwoerd achieved a lot thanks to his huge net. When he was a theater director in Cuijk, he managed to raise an amount of 8 million for the refurbishment of the local theater through his contacts with the then Queen’s Commissioner Dries van Agt and culture minister Eelco Brinkman. Not everything is going smoothly, but now more than half of the residents of Heerlen and Kerkrade say they visit the theaters in Parkstad Limburg every year.
