Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the largest repertory company in the Netherlands. Its home base is the AmsterdamStadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam. In 2018 Toneelgroep Amsterdam merged with Stadsschouwburg to form Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.[1]
History
Stadsschouwburg in 2015 advertising two TA productions: Antigone and Queen Lear
The Dutch Company Toneelgroep Amsterdam started in 1987 through a merger of Toneelgroep Centrum [nl] and Publiekstheater [nl] with Gerardjan Rijnders as its artistic director. His montage-method of creating plays and his avant-garde stagings of classic plays were very influential in the Netherlands, as well as abroad. Since 2000 the company is led by Flemish director Ivo van Hove. He and his long-time designer Jan Versweyveld broke through the confinements of the classical stage to rediscover the stage as a "location." For their production Faces (an adaptation of John Cassavetes's film) the audience watched the show lying in beds.
International
Many of Toneelgroep Amsterdam's productions travel abroad. For instance, van Hove's adaptation of several of Shakespeare's plays, presented under the title Roman Tragedies, was shown at the major European theatre festivals (Wiener Festwochen,[2]Festival d'Avignon,[3]Theaterformen). Opening Night, another adaptation of a Cassavetes film, was shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in December 2008,[4][5] and at Melbourne Festival in Australia in October 2010, which was van Hove's Australian debut.[6] "Ivo van Hove's work has been groundbreaking in opening up audiences' understanding of classic texts and films. His work is unique, raw, shocking, surprising, hilarious – everything you want theatre to be – and he doesn't shy away from the ugly or the profane. In a word, stunning, with a capital ‘S’." (Cate Blanchett)[citation needed]
