Next summer, Maaspoort will be celebrating its 40th anniversary, so there will be an extra thick Maaspoort Magazine on the mat this season. With no fewer than 220 shows, the theatre is ambitiously betting on the anniversary year, for which extra performances have therefore been booked.
That large number of performances does not include the successful revival of spectacle musical It was Sunday in the South. The 7 Musical Award-nominated co-production with Toneelgroep Maastricht will start again from 5 June in De Doolhof in Tegelen.
Het Was Zondag in het Zuiden is not the only spectacle this summer, on 24 August - Maaspoort's official anniversary day - the Urban Connections Festival will descend on the theatre and, in addition, an impressive show with urban dance, urban sports, urban music and exceptional talent from the international circus world is being worked on in co-production with various parties from Germany and the Netherlands. "A real urban takeover" laughs programmer Wieke Vrijhoef. "The festival takes place throughout the theatre. We are happy to hand over the key on this special day to the theatre audiences of the future and are very proud of all those involved and the great enthusiasm around this project."
Current theatre audiences are not forgotten in the festivities either; on every fourth day of the month, Maaspoort invites them to come to a performance for a soft price with the question "FOUR you along?". The series is a mixed programme, including the unique opportunity to experience a concert in the midst of PhilZuid's orchestra, attend the premiere THOES by musical stars Suzan Seegers and Renée van Wegberg or go to the theatre concert by Karin Bloemen, who also performed at the festive reopening in 2013. The appropriate 'Theatre Party' by festival sensation Prince S. and the Goat is not missing from the birthday line-up. This way, the theatre celebrates the entire season.
In addition, the 'regular' programme is also bursting with well-known names, such as Claudia de Breij, Daniël Arends, Numidia, Joël Borelli, Theater Rotterdam, Nederlands Dans Theater or Hans Klok, and Maaspoort continues to develop as a place for talented makers and social projects, so programmer Vrijhoef is sure that there will be more performances to come.
The increase in the number of shows for next season is also explained by additional family programmes. Since 2022, all shows for children under 13 have been free of charge and this has been taken advantage of en masse, something director-director Leon Thommassen is particularly proud of. This initiative also absolutely contributed to the great success of last season, the most successful year in Maaspoort's history, with already 107,000 tickets sold for the theatre programme - excluding visitors to It was Sunday in the South. 87 sold-out performances and an average auditorium occupancy of 69 per cent. "Those are visitor figures that make you happy". Thommassen has held his post since 2011 and is looking forward to the anniversary year. "Maaspoort is an indispensable and characteristic part of Venlo, I have seen the organisation grow enormously and I am happy with the team and the programme with which we enter this season. Through the theatre programme, but also through all the other activities we do for and with the people of Venlo, you can see that we are getting an increasingly wider reach. A theatre creates real connections in a city, and it's nice to realise that we have been building this together for 40 years."
start sale friends of Maaspoort
Tuesday 28 May 2024 | 10:00
start sale subscription holders
Friday 31 May 2024 | 16:00
start free sale
Tuesday 4 June 2024 | 16:00