Past event — This event ended 13 days ago.
Louis Janssens - Family
About the event
For the production 'Family', theatre maker Louis Janssens has invited four actors from different generations to join him on stage. They tell stories, ask questions, and seek comfort, support, and recognition in one another. The production 'Family' has been selected for the Nederlands Theater Festival 2026 and can be seen at Theater Bellevue. Family
It is about how family ties connect us and how they inevitably shape our lives. About blood family and chosen family. About parents, children, growing up, and the fear of being left behind. The performers appear on stage as themselves, yet throughout the performance, they seem to increasingly become each other's family. A poetic and relatable text-based performance about the universal reality of family. Starting from a queer perspective, they tell a larger human story about having and searching for a family. Not everyone has children, but ultimately, we are all children.
About Louis Janssens
In recent years, Louis Janssens created the solo performance Serenade (#nieuwjong Het TheaterFestival 2021), the duet Analoog with Willem de Wolf (Het TheaterFestival and Nederlands Theaterfestival 2023), and Desire (Het TheaterFestival 2024). Now he is creating the performance Family together with an intergenerational queer cast consisting of Peter Seynaeve (NTGent, Het Zuidelijk Toneel), Maureen Teeuwen (Maatschappij Discordia, mugmetdegoudentand), Mourad Baaiz (Artemis/hetpaleis/Het Zuidelijk Toneel, Schauspielhaus Bochum) & Francis Geeraert (Compagnie Barbarie).
From the jury report of the Dutch Theatre Festival 2026: 'Loneliness is palpable in all the stories in Family by Louis Janssens. The spectator realizes that belonging to a family, or starting one themselves, is not a given for everyone. This serene, intimate, and atmospheric ritual proves that the latter is indeed still possible.'
