Downstage Left’s most recent edition of the playground was performed in July, 2023 at the Badhuis Theater. The show sold out and was very well received.

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. For this edition of the Playground, we brought you three short plays about people looking for resolution — and not always finding it.

The plays

Gobby, by Jodie Irvine

Gobby is the story of one woman’s journey through five parties and the curse of being ‘too loud’. Awkward meetings and exclusion abound. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes deeply saddening, Gobby is a festival of feelings.

Meeting in Amsterdam, by Edward Einhorn

Frida Vanek, niece of the famous dissident playwright Ferdinand Vanek (a character made famous by Vaclav Havel), has a meeting in Amsterdam with Jan Stanek, her father’s old friend. Frida is an American, her parents immigrated just after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Jan is running for political office in the modern Czech Republic and visiting Amsterdam to fundraise. Frida has just found some damning papers about Jan, however, in her mother’s papers. According to the papers, Jan was once an informant to the Communist secret police. Frida confronts Jan and the question of whether to make them public.

First came guilt and shame followed, by Linda Sjöström

A brand new and deeply moving piece that looks at the pains of family duty and some of the almost impossible burdens of motherhood.

When and where?

Playground 5 played at

The Badhuistheater
Boerhaaveplein 28
1091 AT
badhuistheater.nl

Thursday 13 July 20:00
Friday 14 July 20:00
Saturday 15 July 20:00

Standard €17
Early-bird €15.00 (available until the end of May)

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

In December Downstage Left staged the Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life, adapted for stage by Joe Landry as a live radio play. Downstage Left staged this production in collaboration with the InPlayers, Amsterdam’s most-cherished English-language theatre group.

In many ways It’s a Wonderful Life is America’s Christmas Carol, a story of redemption, hope and Christmas magic.

It’s A Wonderful Life: A live Radio Play ran from December 15-18 at the Polanentheater in Amsterdam.

Cast
Katya Petrova
Brian Ligthart
Amanda Lee
Christine Blakeley
Domenico Gemoli
Eoghan Kellher
Ente Breed
Abigail Levene
Benjamin Keaton
Maria Charles
Alexandra Sokolowski
Anna Anning

Crew
Denis Burke – Director
Katya Petrova – Stage Manager
Jess Graham – Set Designer | Prop Master
Morag McLean – Set Designer | Prop Master
Evonne Dunne – Sound and Lighting
Ángela Sedeño Cacciatore – Costume Designer | Graphic design
Ente Breed – Musical arrangements | Piano

Produced by special arrangement with Playscripts, Inc. (www.playscripts.com)

Image: Ángela Sedeño

Following Russia’s most recent invasion of Ukraine, many in the International Theater Companies of Amsterdam feel compelled to express solidarity and help raise funds.

Appropriately, we are taking part in a script-in-hand performance of The Government Inspector – probably the best known satire of acclaimed Ukrainian playwright Nikolai Gogol – at Mike’s Badhuistheater, in collaboration with the Badhuis International and the InPlayers.

Tickets available here

The play is a comedy of errors, satirizing human greed, stupidity, and the extensive political corruption of the Russian Colonial Empire, of which Ukraine was a part in 1830 . The corrupt officials of a small town, headed by the Mayor, react with panic to the news that an undercover inspector will soon be arriving in their town to investigate them.

Tickets available here

All ticket sales and donations will go to https://razomforukraine.org/

Click here to watch Are You In Love Yet? on YouTube

Can two strangers fall in love in five minutes? Downstage Left proudly presents our first original video production: Are You In Love Yet?

Spurred by curiosity, Helen and Jeremy agree to participate in an online experiment.

Through video chat, they’re prompted to answer a series of questions designed to make the participants fall in love.

Will it work?

This short film is written by Denis Burke and features Abigail Levene and Ben Evans. Editing by Thomas Evans (Follow his work here). It premiered the 23rd of September at 8:15 pm on YouTube and is now available for everyone to watch.