Amsterdam Worldwide Theater introduced Wednesday that it has ended its relationship with Ivo van Hove, the Tony-winning director who led the corporate for greater than 20 years. The break up was introduced simply weeks after a report mentioned a “tradition of concern” had developed below van Hove and that he had allowed bullying to go unchecked.
Though van Hove retires from the post of artistic director of the theater final 12 months he stayed on as a salaried creative advisor and was scheduled to create a brand new job. A news release this week mentioned that these collaborations had been terminated, and the whole supervisory board of the theater resigned.
“By taking these steps and creating an area for restoration and transparency, the pursuits and emotions of all concerned are being taken significantly,” Clyde Menso, managing director of the Worldwide Theater Amsterdam, mentioned in a press release.
In July, the Worldwide Theater in Amsterdam published an independent report this consists of the outcomes of a survey of 285 present and former staff.
The report detailed incidents of harassment and intimidation, together with an actress yelling at a crew member after a mistake and a visitor director appearing in an identical method towards actors. Many survey respondents mentioned they didn’t really feel protected with the corporate.
Final week the NRC newspaper published its own investigation within the backstage tradition of the theater. Within the article, the actress mentioned that her colleague grabbed her by the throat.
A spokesperson for van Hove mentioned the director was declining all interview requests. In a quick written assertion, van Hove mentioned the choice to depart the theater was “mutually agreed.”
Van Hove took over the theater in 2001 when it was generally known as Toneelgroep. He turned it into one of many nice theaters in Europe and toured its productions internationally, together with in New York. In 2022, the theatrical adaptation of Little Life played to rave reviews on the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Van Hove’s personal profile has lengthy outpaced that of the corporate. In 2016, he gained a Tony Award for guiding Arthur Miller “View from the Bridge”, and he was nominated in 2019 for “Network” starring Bryan Cranston.
However a few of van Hove’s latest reveals have fallen wanting that earlier success. In February 2020, his revival of “West Side Story” received mixed reviews simply weeks earlier than the coronavirus pandemic shut down Broadway. (The musical was never screened again.) This 12 months the British critics devastated his Opening Night in London’s West Finish; its execution ended greater than two months early.
After stepping down as creative director of the Worldwide Theater in Amsterdam, van Hove took over the administration of the Ruhrtriennale Arts Festival in northern Germany. Its first version started final Friday, with “I want absolute beauty” through which the actor Sandra Hueller performs PJ Harvey songs.
Tales of hassle on the theater started to emerge final 12 months when Ellen DeVos, an actress within the ensemble, wrote on Instagram that she was leaving the corporate as a result of she had “witnessed and suffered extreme psychological and bodily abuse.” When she complained, DeVos mentioned she “was aggressively pushed again.”
DeVos didn’t reply to an interview request.
Hein Jansen, a longtime theater critic for de Volkskrant newspaper, mentioned van Hove’s worldwide success performed a task within the scandal. As a result of van Hove labored abroad so typically, he could not correctly monitor the corporate and appeared blissful to let different staff deal with incidents, Jansen mentioned. “Complaints had been ignored,” he added.
Jansen mentioned he was shocked to learn within the report that star actors on the firm had harassed and intimidated youthful colleagues. Reducing ties with van Hove will not repair that, he mentioned. He added that Elin Arbo, the theater’s present creative director, ought to concentrate on fixing the tradition in Amsterdam as an alternative of working overseas.
Marien Lems, theater critic on the NRC, mentioned she didn’t anticipate the scandal to have an effect on van Hove’s worldwide repute. However, he added, it has significantly harm the director’s picture within the Netherlands.
“The massive theaters will not need something to do with it,” Lems mentioned.
