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Where the culture sector after the corona worn out to fill the halls, the theater has recently reached out to a new audience: young, heterogeneous and still unfamiliar with theatre. This is what directors and programmers from various theaters in the Netherlands say.
Take the Dutch-Moroccan community for example. Until recently he was underrepresented among theatergoers. This also came up an investigation of the Social and Cultural Planning Office: young people of non-Western origin in particular are much less visible in the theater than those of indigenous origin.
So something is changing, although it seems that it is mainly producers with a large reach who manage to get other bands to come to their performances.
Before the theater could bill me, my show was sold out.
“That’s not the point,” says filmmaker and comedian Jawad Es Soufi, better known by his pseudonym ‘Sloegie’. Lui made his debut in a solo show in 2020 and has rarely had places left since then in venues in the Netherlands and Belgium. He already noticed then that there is enough enthusiasm for theater in the Dutch-Moroccan community, among others.
And though theaters still didn’t see it that way, Es Soufi was adamant: “For my first show, I went to Theater Rotterdam and asked if I could do a show. I have 10,000 Instagram followers and if only 10% had a ticket for the hall is already sold out, I told them.”
After a long conversation, Es Soufi was allowed to rent the room for an evening. The amount was advanced by his friend and professional footballer Sofyan Amrabat, the Dutch-Moroccan champion at the last World Cup for Morocco: “But before the theater could invoice, my show was already sold out.”
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Fellow stand-up comedian Hamza Benmira also signaled this demand from the Dutch-Moroccan community when he founded the comedy group Borrelnootjez twelve years ago: “You already noticed that there was a need for live performances. When we created the first one in 2011, was there in no time. times sold out in all major cities in the Netherlands.”
According to Benmira, it is only a matter of time before there is more supply from producers and theatres: “We are of the first generation that could deal with this kind of thing. Our parents were busy making ends meet and surviving.” Benmira also mentions Najib Amhali. “He was the only one who did cabaret at the time. There was little offer”.
For Borrelnootjez it’s about being able to identify, he explains. “In America you had DefJam and black comedy, we used to watch it. We saw theaters filled with mainly African-American audiences and thought: we Moroccan-Dutch want this too. With things that are recognizable for us, with which we can identify our type of humour”.
New movement
For this reason, directors and programmers from various theaters also try to bring together supply and demand. Also Bram Jacobs, head of programming at the Parktheater in Eindhoven. He explains that since the corona there has been a trend break in the theater world.
‘We’ve always served a captive theater audience, but we were also missing a lot of people. We’ve noticed that traditional audiences have been dropping in less often, so we’ve had to start a new movement – and this is being supported by the people who work in theatres. Now they’re more diverse and younger people and therefore look at this type of offer differently”.
“Diversity is about recognition”
For Yassine Boussaid, director of the Meervaart in Amsterdam, a diverse range goes even further: “You are not different if you only book ‘Sloegie’, you are only different if you book ‘Sloegie’ and a Jon van Eerd. It should be an acknowledgment for everyone, here what is it about”.
“I have no problem with monoculture in one room,” Boussaid continues. “Just the perception that this group belongs to only one type of person is incorrect. It’s a stratified group and you have to show them something else. It’s about broadening the frames of reference and you get that through cross-pollination in the atrium – different types that welcome people to the theater.”
They create this cross-pollination at the Meervaart by making the theater accessible to people from all socio-economic strata. Boussaid mentions the city pass of the municipality of Amsterdam, with which low-income residents can attend a show for free or at a discount. “That’s how you enrich and inspire people with a great night out.”
