Category: Past productions

Downstage Left performed Nick Payne’s acclaimed play Constellations in November 2023.

Constellations is a love story that moves across the multiverse, giving us a glimpse of the infinite possibilities and infinite combinations swirling around two star-crossed lovers… one of whom is a quantum physicist. Oh yeah. And the other is a bee keeper.

The play follows the relationship of Marianne and Roland as they meet, fall in and out of love, fall apart and come back together. This beautiful script takes us through quantum mechanics, multiple universes and possibilities, and bee keeping.

Matt Wolf of The New York Times described it as “The nearest I’ve come across in ages to a play that feels heaven-sent.”  

Downstage Left’s production of Constellations was directed by Cathrine Andresen.

Two casts played on alternating days. Team Leo/Gemini, Danielle Hollreiser and Denis Burke, and Team Sagittarius/Capricorn, Mimi van Amerongen and Christopher Grabski.

Content note: The performance includes intimacy, domestic violence and terminal disease.

where and when

constellations played on
November 23-26, 2023 at
Het Polanentheater
Polanenstraat 174
1013WC
Amsterdam

tickets €20.00

Cast and crew

Leo/Gemini
Marianne: Danielle Hollreiser
Roland: Denis Burke
Sagittarius/Capricorn
Marianne: Mimi van Amerongen
Roland: Christopher Grabski

Director: Cathrine Andresen
Assistant director: Yann Belin
Set design: Jess Graham
Lighting: John Ricker
Sound: Evonne Dunne
Intimacy consultant: Becky Blomgren

This amateur production of “Constellations” was presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. http://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk

Yes! The Amsterdam Art Heist is coming back for a second run. Following sold out performances in April, we’re bringing back the Heist for a second outing. Whether you missed it the first time or you’re thirsty to see it again, hurry and grab tickets while they’re going.

About the show

A priceless painting disappears without a trace from Amsterdam’s National Museum.

Ten years later, famous private investigator Eva Blazsko travels back through time to solve the mystery.

Things do not go smoothly.

This time traveling, art heist whodunnit is a Downstage Left original production.

tickets

Tickets: €19,00

Thursday 5 October 20:00
Friday 6 October 20:00
Saturday 7 October 20:00

The Badhuistheater
Boerhaaveplein 28
1091 AT
badhuistheater.nl

Cast: Mash Muravina, Türkü Köksel, Maria Charles, Peppy Mac Ruairi & Ben Evans
Directed by Silvia Pietrosanti
Assistant director: Denis Burke
Set and props: Jess Graham
Light and sound: Evonne Dunne
Special effects: Morag McLean

Praise for The first run of Amsterdam Art Heist

“Congratulations DSL on another really entertaining evening”

“This STUNNING show! (I’m sad for those who didn’t witness this awesome piece)”

“Amazing show! Wonderful cast, smart, witty text, spectacular set”

“A sparkling evening full of humor, energy and surprises. Loved it all!”

All photos by Daniel Fornies Soria, all rights reserved

Send us your scripts

We want to help brand new Netherlands-based writers develop their first scripts (or at least their first scripts in English), culminating in a staged reading before a live audience. We’ll select between three and five scripts from all the scripts received to take forward.

What kind of new work? 

We’re open to any genre, any setting, with some preference for comedy. Working with the resources available, scripts should require minimal staging (eg lighting, set, props, costumes, effects) and few actors: two or three would be ideal.

More than four will be difficult to accommodate. While not ruling out monologues, pieces for two or three actors will get our preference. Scripts should have a run time of between 10-20 minutes (very approximately 10-20 pages). We’re not in a position to stage musicals or adaptations at this time.

When?

Please send your script to info@downstageleft.org with ‘Script submissions’ in the subject line before June 23. We hope to respond to all submissions by the middle of July. Winning scripts will be staged in Amsterdam on the evening of September 11.

Who? 

Downstage Left will draw on its regular directors and actors to help stage the winning submissions. If a prospective writer already has people they would like to work with, we are very open to it, with the caveats that we prefer experienced actors and directors and we discourage playwrights from directing their own work. 

Who can enter?

We’re open to anyone based in the Netherlands, regardless of their national origin or native language. Don’t worry if you feel your English isn’t perfect – we’re interested in your creativity, not your grammar.

“Rules”

Writers agree to give Downstage Left first option on any full production of their play. We have hard criteria (no musicals, no adaptations) and softer criteria (we want to work in a way that feels inclusive and safe for all participants and will select work accordingly) but inevitably, some of our decisions will be subjective. In these cases we ask for understanding and to respect that our decision will be final. 

We’re not terribly fussy about format but if in doubt, the BBC writers room has some useful formats you can work from https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/documents/stage.pdf

In April and October 2023, Downstage Left proudly presented The Amsterdam Art Heist: a time-traveling whodunnit, by Denis Burke.

Cast: Mash Muravina, Türkü Köksel, Becky Blomgren, Peppy Mac Ruairi & Ben Evans
Directed by Silvia Pietrosanti
Set and props: Jess Graham
Light and sound: Evonne Dunne
Special effects: Morag McLean

All photos by Daniel Fornies Soria, all rights reserved

Praise for The Amsterdam Art Heist

“Congratulations DSL on another really entertaining evening”

“This STUNNING show! (I’m sad for those who didn’t witness this awesome piece)”

“Amazing show! Wonderful cast, smart, witty text, spectacular set”

“A sparkling evening full of humor, energy and surprises. Loved it all!”

About the show

A priceless painting disappears without a trace from Amsterdam’s National Museum.

Ten years later, famous private investigator Eva Blazsko travels back through time to solve the mystery.

Things do not go smoothly.

This time traveling, art heist whodunnit is a Downstage Left original production.

When and where?

The Amsterdam Art Heist played at

The Badhuistheater
Boerhaaveplein 28
1091 AT
badhuistheater.nl

Playground 4 – The Waiting Room played in September 2022 at at Mike’s Badhuistheater. With each Playground we pick a theme and present 3-5 short plays based on that theme, including work from emerging playwrights, as well as established greats.

This evening of short plays was about the conversations that take place as people wait for important decisions that could change their lives.

The plays:

Womberang

by Sue Townsend (author of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾)
The waiting room of a gynecology clinic. Patients wait nervously. Enter Rita Onions. Her verve and energy, combined with a complete lack of respect for authority, gradually spreads an infectious, joyous anarchy throughout the patients as she demolishes officious hospital staff and generally sorts out the patients personal problems.
Directed by Cathrine Andresen and Yann Belin
This amateur production of “Womberang” was presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. http://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk

Jail Bird
by Niall Cleary
Following a night of heavy drinking, an Irish man wakes up in the holding cell of an Amsterdam police station with a (sore) head full of questions. When did he get a lawyer? What happened the night before that landed him here? And just how much trouble is he really in?
Directed by Jess Graham

The Astronaut’s Missing Passport
by Denis Burke
Having safely completed her first mission to space, Sadaf begins her journey home in the altered circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic but loses her passport on the way.
Stuck in bureaucratic limbo at the immigration office of a remote UK airport, she talks about Brexit, privatisation, statues and nationalism, with the officials detaining her as they weigh her story and their doubts about her identity.
Directed by Denis Burke

Set design by Jess Graham
Light and sound by Evonne Dunne

This edition of the Playground was made possible with the kind support of the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst

Rehearsal Photography by Steve Lieveld @stevelieveldphotography
Performance shots by Arjen Veldt

Downstage Left performed Proof, by David Auburn, in April 2022. Our first live performance after the lockdowns was a great success.

Proof is the story of Catherine, the daughter of Robert, a famous mathematician at the University of Chicago, and her struggle with the fine line between genius and madness. How much of either did she inherit from him?

Catherine has cared for her father through his long mental illness, while her sister Claire got on with her life in New York. Upon Robert’s death, Claire returns home to ‘settle’ family affairs whilst his ex-graduate student Hal searches Robert’s papers hoping to find a bit of his old brilliance.

What Hal discovers causes them all to examine the very nature of love, trust and sacrifice. It also raises the question: is it possible to prove anything?”

Proof won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001.

Praise for our production of Proof
“An excellent play excellently produced and performed in de Nieuwe Anita!” – Sue

“Saw the first performance of the wonderful play ‘PROOF’. It was so great and the actors were all excellent!” – David

“Such a wonderful production! Great acting all around, well-written script. Invites you to think!” – Michael

Where and when?
Downstage Left performed Proof at De Nieuwe Anita on April 12 and 13 and at Mike’s Badhuistheater on April 21, 22 and 23.

Cast and Crew

Catherine – Alyssa Wagner
Robert – Ben Evans
Hal – Denis Burke
Clare – Quin Mero

Dramaturge – Valia Tamvaki
Set Design – Jess Graham
Light and sound – Evonne Dunne
Promotion – Katharina Olsen

Poster design: Victoria Prokhorova @nika_prokhor
Photos: Arjen Veldt

This amateur production of “Proof” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. http://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk

Plot summary adapted from “Proof”(CC-BY-SA)

A short play about identity, privatisation and the simple documents that change our lives.

Having safely completed her first mission to space, Sadaf begins her journey home in the altered circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic but loses her passport on the way.

Stuck in bureaucratic limbo at the immigration office of a remote UK airport, she talks about Brexit, privatisation, statues and nationalism, with the officials detaining her as they weigh her story and their doubts about her identity.

Starring:
Türkü Köksel, Abigail Levene and Andy Cowie

Written and directed by:
Denis Burke

The Astronaut’s Missing Passport was first presented as part of Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics 2021.