You know how it is when you ask new parents about their babies and their eyes light up? Yeah, Blue Goat Theatre is like that for me! My beautiful, crazy theatre baby is now just over one year old. Ahhhh…they grow up so fast…
There are many different English clubs in Düsseldorf, but I’m here to tell you all about my baby, the Blue Goat Theatre.
What’s it All About?
Blue Goat Theatre was created in 2018 as a home for independent and alternative theatre in Düsseldorf. I wanted a space where I could showcase not only my own plays but also new plays by up-and-coming writers. We perform in English and in German, both here in Düsseldorf and at international Fringe Festivals. We’ve performed at the Reading Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe (the largest Fringe Festival in the world!), and the Prague Fringe Festival.
With both our original plays and those by established writers, we are looking for shows that not only entertain but also include social commentary in some form. We want our audiences to have fun, but to also leave with some new ideas or perspectives to chew over on the way home!
We are also committed to promoting diversity and representation in our productions; casting plays that reflect the way society looks.
But really, what’s so great about theatre?
What I love about theatre is the contact between the audience and the actors. With film, you expect what you’re looking at to be true to the setting. In theatre, you take your audience into a darkened space and you say – this is an airport, or this is a forest, or this is a street. And at that moment the audience has to make a choice to go beyond what they know a street looks like and trust that you will show them your street, that you will make them feel the street or the forest or the airport and then, for a brief period of time, you can transport them to another world.
It’s reaching out your hand to a stranger and saying ‘here, let me show you’.
I always tell my actors that it doesn’t matter how many people you have in an audience, whether it’s one or one hundred. Every single one of those people has made a choice to be there rather than sitting at home on the couch watching Netflix in their pajamas! For the next hour or so they will turn off their phones and give you their full attention. That for me – especially in this age of easy distraction – is an incredible gift.
What’s Coming Up?
We have a full schedule coming up in 2020, kicking off with a new play in German – Männer-Legenden. This is a very powerful piece about toxic masculinity and the old wounds and legacies that come back to haunt us throughout our lives. This will be performed in Düsseldorf and Duisburg in March.
In May, we will be staging a new production of Cold Feet in English. Cold Feet is a play about three brides whose weddings aren’t going quite to plan. It explores life, love, and those niggling doubts we all have about the future. First performed in 2016, the play has been completely overhauled and we’re very excited about the revised version. Fingers crossed this one will also be touring in the middle of the year – more details to come.
We’ll be performing J’n’R in German at a Fringe Festival in the second half of the year. We’ve performed J’n’R for two years now in English and being able to perform it in both English and German has been a lot of fun. J’n’R is a love story loosely based on the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet but set in an airport at 4 am and without the ensuing sex and stabbing!
And finally, we have a brand new original production in English that will be staged in September. Stay tuned for more details on that one! (No it doesn’t have an official name because it’s still under construction! Nothing like a solid deadline to help get those words down on paper!)
We’ll also be running our very successful Improv Workshops in the second half of next year. These were run on a weekly class basis and also in corporate settings in 2019 and were extremely well received.
Where can I find out more?
All of our shows, auditions, and workshops are listed on our website – www.bluegoattheatre.com You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook – @bluegoattheatre.
If you have any questions or would like to talk about getting involved behind the scenes, you can send an email to info@bluegoattheatre.com. We’d love to have a chat!
