Het nieuwstedelijk is the city theatre of Leuven, Hasselt and Genk (Belgium) an artist-run music theatre company that helps shape the city and the community of the future, telling stories about life here and now, embodying and debating them, with an extra focus on new writing and audio work. We are currently in the process of producing several new plays, one of which will première on August 13th 2020 called Yellow Vest about this new and ambiguous form of protest and social struggle.

And we will be hosting an international festival on contemporary playwriting aptly named Shakespeare is dead in February 2021

Hoe dan ook
One way or another

Hoe dan ook are 9 short plays created during the lockdown and shared with our audience during 9 Facebook live events between the dates of May 14th and July 2d 2020.

They are as varied in form as a dreamlike composition with a poem as voiceover to an absurd conversation in the ‘’smoking room” of a Zoom party, and in theme from a woman trying to radio up to the international space station after an outbreak to an actor refusing to perform without a live audience.

In some the current reality is very present: most so in a monologue of a doctor saying goodbye before being put into an artificial coma, in some only simmering in the background: a man trying to cancel his honeymoon ..But all trying to connect to our audience “Hoe dan ook / One way or another

 

 In Influence a well-known YouTuber is pondering how to use the little influence she hasI (In English)

Buffering (Dutch spoken + subtitles) a woman is trying to have an honest conversation with her daughter in between the glitches (with English subtltles)

The other 5 piecese are Dutch spoken.

Last Call

Last Call is the English version of Dansen Drinken Betalen – (almost) The Movie. It is in fact almost a movie. But it's also a lot more than that. Playwright and theater director Adriaan Van Aken and graphic artist Philip Paquet transformed their new comic book into a dynamic video projection for the big screen. Live on stage, actress Sara Vertongen and keyboard miracle Joris Caluwaerts (well known Belgian pop bands Zita Swoon, Stuff, Magnus,...), add voices, sounds and music to the graphic story. Result? The most vivid and at the same time most comfortable reading of a comic book that you could ever wish for

Conversation with the rain

After the death of their daughter, a couple moves to Singapore.
She starts a demanding job as CEO of a nanotech company. He strolls through the monsoons and seems to see his daughter’s words in the rain.

A conversation ensues. A purifying story about love and loss. A story based on the personal experience of our award-winning playwright Stijn Devillé, told by two musicians, two actors and a rain printing device. English spoken.

written and directed by Stijn Devillé with Tom Van Bauwel & Sara Vertongen, music by Gerrit Valckenaers & Geert Waegeman and video by Walter Verdin