Category: Theatre


  • another opera for me
    another shit ton of stuff i didn’t know about
    but not as much
    not as much as last time
    the score isn’t on an ipad this time
    and this time it’s a partitur not a score because we’re (mostly) working within the danish language
    this time i won’t leave before musical rehearsals begin
    i’ll be there for the costumes,
    for the makeup
    for the musicians
    the set’s been here all along because this time we’re not rehersing in a gloriously free but not gloriously decorated space on gansewoort st. in the west village

    this time baby we’re in the library
    an ancient one
    a splendid one
    a sacred one
    where the words of the history that’s been written reside
    someone wrote the words and mostly tourists come to read them, or to see that they exist,
    nevertheless they exist
    as does the set
    as will the lighting
    as will the choir
    as do the circus artists
    as does the solists, the prop designer, my production partner in crime, the choreogrpher, the director and me, lil me, co-director and assistant to her, Her, another opera master i never knew about,
    ive started to miss afuk
    started to think huh, i should have become a circus artist
    next week ill probably think huh, i guess i really am nowhere near close being an opera singer,
    but i used to climb trees
    used to swing in rings
    used to balance on my uncle’s shoulders
    now my niece balances on mine
    maybe one day there’ll be more swinging
    more balancing, more acrobaticts, pilates isn’t bad, we’ll see whatever i do with this, this thing i’m experiencing, this thing that’s accumulating in my curious bones

  • this month i’m the director’s assistant of

    which is a new version of molières Don Juan; seduction, morality, discussions, lions, strategy, chess, love, bodies, orgasms, lies, hypocrisy, murder, revenge, siblings, queerness, threats, imagination, disappointments, inheritance, parties, ecstacy, responsibility, shame, religion and something so incomprehensibly important that the academics cannot put into words

    photos are from previous run in 2023:

    photos: camilla winther

    TEAM

    Director: Anna Balslev
    Playwright: Molière
    Set design and costumes: Karin Gille
    Adaptation: Anna Balslev and the team
    Composer: Viktor Dahl
    Sound design: Jonas Vest
    Lighting design: Jonas Bøgh
    Translation: Per Aage Brandt

    Performers:
    Morten Hee Andersen, Özlem Saglanmak, Karen-Lise Mynster, Simon Kongsted, Kristoffer Eriknauer, Laura Skjoldborg & Ari Alexander

    And stage manager Cecilie Bech, signal operator Thomas Westphael and a huge bunch of other talented people behind the scenes

  • 31 okt 18.48

    Det er bælgmørkt udenfor,
    en af skuespillerne stillede sig op på en stol for at nå uret for at stille uret en time tilbage,
    chokket over vintertid er ved at have lagt sig nu,
    men jeg er stadig kun ved at forstå at min aften her i stearinlysets skriveskær allerede kan starte klokken kvart i 6.

    Jeg famler mindre i mørke nu, end jeg gjorde for et par uger siden.

    For 2,5 uger siden vidste jeg ikke, hvor jeg skulle møde op, indtil forestillingslederen svarede på min sms
    instruktøren havde ikke set min e-mail fra om torsdagen
    mandag morgen mødte jeg altså op og mødte forestillingslederen og instruktøren,
    ingen af dem har jeg krammet endnu,
    men i dag spurgte forestillingslederen mig om jeg skulle være fuld i weekenden
    et par minutter tidligere så instruktøren mig i øjnene og sagde tak for denne uge,
    en times tid tidligere grinede vi alle af den allerførste rigtige fejl, jeg har lavet under prøverne, og alle forsikrede mig om at deres latterudbrud bare var for sjov,
    et par timer tidligere ønskede jeg en af skuespillerne tillykke med fødselsdagen i morgen,
    tidligere havde en anden skuespiller nævnt at de booker et bord på tirsdag eller fredag og alle er meget velkomne,

    Jeg ved godt, jeg også er velkommen
    men jeg famler mig vej socialt
    fagligt er jeg ved at være der.

    Jeg er ved at fatte at når instruktøren siger, jeg skal være videoregistreringsqueen, så er det muligvis det eneste, jeg skal være queen over,
    så jeg er videoregistreringsqueen og så lidt ekstra når jeg kan finde noget andet at hjælpe med,

    jeg tør godt gå ned til den ikoniske skuespillerinde på 74  og fortælle hende, hvornår hun skal rulle det lange brudeslør op, og til hvilken side, hun skal lægge det fra sig
    jeg tør godt være stille i selskab med lyddesigneren, der fortsat er imponeret over at jeg kan afvikle i Qlab
    jeg tør godt sende instruktøren et moodboard, jeg har lavet uopfordret med risiko for at hun synes det er spurgt,

    jeg er ved at blive en person, instruktøren regner med kan finde ud af mange forskellige ting
    jeg er ved at blive en person, instruktøren fejrer en fantastisk slutning med
    jeg er ved at opbygge en form for pingpong med signaløren, en person hvis
    job, jeg aldrig havde hørt om og som kun eksisterer på det kongelige teater åbenbart,
    jeg er ved at blive en go-to person for skuespillerne, når de ikke ved, om deres exit er i konge- eller damesiden, eller de har glemt på hvilken publikumsrække, de skal gemme sig i i scene 9

    jeg ved hvor jeg skal skaffe en karaffel med danskvand til instruktøren
    og jeg ved, det er komælk, der skal i hendes cortado,
    jeg ved, at dramaturgen læser med i de prøvenotater, jeg sætter ham cc’et på efter hver arbejdsdag,

    jeg har lært, hvad kabuki betyder og kommer til at hviske det til min sidemakker hver gang et scenetæppe falder ensartet ned i en emil rostrup-forestilling
    jeg har lært, hvad en signalør er
    jeg har lært, at en kongelig-teater-instruktørassistent er en blanding af en sufflør, en forestillingsleder og en fix+foxy-instruktørassistent
    jeg har lært at holde min kæft og lade være med at cue når en skuespiller leder efter en replik, fordi der er en sufflør, som har finpudset sin teknik i tyve år
    jeg har lært at det er godt at jeg nogle gange bare afspiller lyd, selvom instruktøren ikke har bedt mig om det
                det vidste jeg godt i forvejen
    jeg har lært at jeg kommer til at afspejle mit eget parforhold i de fiktive karakterer på scenens, og jeg har ikke endnu lært hvordan jeg lige dealer med det,
    jeg har lært hvordan referencer til film, podcasts, bøger og tv-serier er en gigantisk og uundværlig ressource i et prøveforløb hvor man arbejder med karakaterer, der rent faktisk har en psyke og en dramaturgisk bue, og jeg har fortsat gigantisk optur over at den del af min personlighed pludselig bliver set som selvfølgeligt værdifuldt og ikke bare popkulturs-smart,
    jeg har lært at lægge mærke til detaljerne i bøjede og strakte knæ,
    jeg har lært, hvordan det er en god idé at skabe et meget konkret samtalerum for forskellige typer af kys når man har en intimscene, der skal koordineres
    jeg har lært, at man kan skrue op for mængden af mælk i kaffeautomaten på 3. sal, men kun når man skal have chokomilk, ikke når man skal have cappuchino,
    jeg har lært den letteste vej til Store Prøvesal

    jeg er stadig ved at finde ud af, hvordan jeg kan eksistere i min private personlighed samtidig med min faglige
    her, i et arbejdsrum hvor de andre kender hinanden og hvor jeg ingen autoritet har til at starte en samtale eller til at komme med inputs i de andres fordi måske starter prøven om lidt og for alt i verden vil jeg ikke være uprofessionel,
    jeg er i tvivl om grænsen mellem privat og professionel,
    her, i et arbejdsrum hvor nogen er meget private og andre ikke er det, og de fleste skal til julefrokost d. 12. december men der er min praktik jo ophørt så jeg ved ikke, om jeg er inviteret
    her, i et arbejdsrum hvor ingen ved hvor sjov jeg egentlig er,
    her, i et arbejdsrum hvor jeg er ny
    her, i et arbejdsrum hvor jeg føler jeg assisterer en 5 år ældre udgave af mig selv,

    som jeg ser op til
    som jeg er intimideret af
    som jeg vil være venner med
    som jeg griner meget højt med, når en af skuespillerne er usandsynligt sjov for fjerde gang den scene
    som er langt dygtigere end jeg er
    som også har slået op med sin mentor
    som er langt mere magtfuld, end jeg er
    som kalder mig for ”en knag” og får mig til at smile og tænke at fremtiden er umulig at spå om

  • not really anybody’s fault
    an unhinged series of unfortunate events
    bad luck, potentially bad planning
    i don’t know how it happened because that wasn’t my job
    i was just hired for something
    and i did that thing
    and then another thing
    and then another
    or the show would have been canceled
    because the bosses hadn’t been able to foresee the unforeseen
    but the bosses should have been smarter than us
    they should have been smarter than me
    they should have been around in case the unforeseen became another,
    very real,
    thing to handle
    so the somebody’s who had to handle it
    hadn’t become us

    they should have been smarter than us
    smart enough to play it safe

    it’s easy for me to say
    but it was hard for me to fix

  • jonathan gelfond from “social studies” / Katrine in a perfect office

    fun admin

    social studies-documentary and notes and lunch / quote from animal farm / animal farm

    a normal troll

    in between: various notes from various projects or ideas

  • En sød skilsmisse siger jeg, når folk spørger hvordan jeg har det,

    Vi vil bare forskellige ting, mig og min elskede arbejdsplads,

    så jeg skal en anden vej,

    fandt jeg ud af, her nu, og nu er deadlinen om 10 dage ikke længere usynlig men rædselsfuldt tæt på og lysende af hjertebørn jeg vil føde,

    Og jeg har

    Skrevet til rikke hun havde ikke tid men kaldte mig en force of nature, ringet til marianne hun tog den ikke, skrevet til marianne hun svarede at ja måske men hun kan ikke hjælpe mere end at sende mig til noget der hedder borgen og så måske et gæstespil hvis jeg selv kan finde et venue, ringede til borgen de svarede og jeg uddybede på mail, skrevet til kube de svarede, om fredagen ringede borgen tilbage og de kan ik stille lokaler til rådighed for de har ikke officielt overtaget bygningen af kommunen, kube ringede tilbage og vil gerne hjælpe og slå meget af prisen men da jeg ringede tilbage til marianne vidste hun ikke hvem jeg var men så sagde jeg hvem jeg var og skrev til hende hvad kube havde sagt, og så svarede hun i email at jeg da hellere skulle være hos hende, ”hvis du alligevel rykker ind i en kulturinstitution kan du ligeså godt være hos os – billigere” det var min drøm hele tiden, bortset fra da min drøm var rikke, men det er alligevel meget bedre hos marianne for hos rikke kan man aldrig fjerne en publikumsopbygning, og der var en misforståelse åbenbart men måske kan alting lykkes, i mellemtiden havde jeg skrevet til veronica helt modigt uden et hold eller noget, hun ringede tilbage og hun ville gerne, og ringede til cille, som vi havde snakket om vil hun gerne, og alex vil jo gerne for han er min one and only best supporter og video maker og har pæne øjne, og jeg skrev til emma og jeg måtte ringe og hun sagde ”alt for dig” og jeg ringede og hun vil gerne, og jeg ringede til daniel og han ville fandme også gerne, og marianne sendte mig priser og det så godt ud, og jeg skrev nej tak til kube med helt dårlig samvittighed, ringede til svante og han ville gerne, skrev til marianne og så skrev jeg til tue om han kunne hjælpe mig med en samarbejdsaftale om at jeg må låne deres udstyr og lokale til møder når det er ledigt, og marianne sendte interessetilkendegivelsen, jeg blev rædselsslagen for fjerde gang det døgn fordi det jo ikke er en magma-produktion som hun skrev i dokumentet men i eget navn og bliver det mon et problem? Nej det var det godt nok ikke det var det hurtigste nye dokument jeg nogensinde har fået tilsendt, rettet til eget navn nu, kube har ikke svaret det gør de nok aldrig, og annette svarede at jeg godt måtte sende hende budgettet så hun ku se på det, og min far ringede tilbage og gav mig feedback på budgettet, og emma videresendte den redigeringsvenlige word-fil med projektbeskrivelsen til aron og i mellemtiden sendte mathilde mig kånstkollektivets gamle ansøgning og budget så mens jeg lavede ændringer i mit eget sendte emma mig arons noter og så lavede jeg endnu flere smukke ændringer, og så svarede både katrine og jovana på min story om hjælp til budget og de havde modsatrettede råd så jeg valgte det ene af dem, annette svarede ikke men runes voicenote var usandsynligt konkret og alt blev implementeret i budgettet og så sad alex ved siden af mig da vi blev enige om at mit layout faktisk var godt nok uden hans specielle programmer, og han rettede en kreditering jeg havde fucket up og jeg rettede ting på hans cv han havde fucket op og så sendte jeg den afsted i går nat og ku ik sove, adrenalin, vi så anden sæson af the rehearsal som carol fortalte mig var på hbo, og i morges lå jeg i sengen med min telefon og så gik jeg i gang med en liste af ting jeg måske havde skrevet forkert, er det overhovedet projektstøtteudvalget der vurderer netop den her ansøgning, i en bemærkning i budgettet har jeg skrevet projektstøtteudvalget, okay ja det er projektstøtteudvalget, og jeg havde jo glemt at rette den der kreditering, så jeg ændrede krediteringen i word dokumentet så jeg ku lave en ny pdfside og indsætte i den store pdf og så uploadede jeg den nye pdf til min hjemmeside uden at publicere den og så kopierede jeg linket til den nye pdf og satte ind i en anden pdf så henvisningen er rigtig og så læste jeg vejledningen igen for at dobbelttjekke om jeg ku redigere og ikke miste det indsendte, ja de læser altid den senest indsendte så selv hvis den digitale portal er helt fucked fordi deadline er om tre timer så mister jeg ikke det hele, de får det jeg sendte i går, hvilket var derfor jeg sendte den i går vel vidende at jeg ville tjekke igennem i dag, så jeg trykkede på redigér og så redigerede jeg og uploadede filerne igen og så trykkede jeg send og nu har jeg to kvitteringer, den hedder ”gammel kvittering” og ”ny kvittering” i den mappe jeg lavede i mappen i drev og den nye hedder ”vedhæftede filer” og jeg slettede alt andet fra downloads mappen håber jeg, og jeg sendte den nye kvittering til svante og jeg tænker på om jeg skal gå direkte i gang med at kontakte nordeafonden, OK-fonden og Trygfonden eller om jeg lige skal give mig selv et par dage, tænker jeg

    skal give mig

    selv et

    par

    dage

                                        måske svømme

    tatovere alle deres navne

    det er så sygt at være solo selvproducerende men fuldstændig afhængig af at gøre alt sammen med andre,

    og vi er ikke engang gået i gang med det kunstneriske endnu

    jeg lever for en team effort

    og de er ikke engang på mit hold, dem der svarede på stories, dem der sendte et budget, hvordan kan vi snakke om spidse albuer når det er så tydeligt at vi skal hjælpe hinanden, kom og bo på min hems og spørg mig om hvad forskellen på et gæstespil og en co-produktion er, næste år anbefaler jeg dig at indsætte et citat i en tekstboks i selve ansøgningen, ikke som bilag, og så køber du mere mælk i netto mens jeg tørrer mine chokoladefingre af i et gammelt stykke køkkenrulle på spisebordet, vores kontor, der hvor alting starter sammen, parallelt

  • Thursday may 8th

    2025

    09:07 (am), Shabaz café in Nordhavn

    All right.
    here we go in English. Here we go – OK go – music videos from a time when youtube was a teenager. I stole a line from bo burnham’s second best song about the internet and I put I in both the script and in the speech I gave in the foyer in front of the preview-audience.  “The whole world at your fingertips”. Just like he would’ve wanted me to. This could have been more about the internet; the global village, how could it not? It turned out, in the end, it was humans all along. And of course it was – we are the ones with hearts and longing and tears streaming down our cheeks as we realize we’ll possibly never meet in physical life. I wrote a line about data centers and the 1% of the 1%, but my mr. robot references didn’t make it to the final version and in a week’s time I’ll be happy about his decision. Maybe even tonight.

    Tonight is opening night. Do you get that? Do you know what that means? Do you know that I’ll be pressing the panel to unlock the door to the theater in exactly 40 minutes? Do you know that it’s a little crazy to be doing that on opening night – day?
    I wouldn’t know it was crazy if someone hadn’t told me. I’ve never been great at listening to my body, but this time around I’ve heard its calls for sleep. Moved into the spare room in my parents’ apartment and gone swimming in the harbour two out of three days. This morning I went here instead. To clear my mind.

    I thought, in this performance, there would be more, actual, hyper stimulation. I’ve been talking to two of my people last week, the only people in my life that aren’t colleagues right now and one of them kind of is,  about ADHD. I’ve been thinking about notifications and brain pauses, and about the only way to fall asleep for some people is to listen to audiobooks because it makes the brain not think about everything else. I thought the play would be about this, somehow, with notifications and visual claustrophobia, of sound in frequencies to kill your concentration, maybe it is about this but I thought it would be done differently. I didn’t know that the way would be to see the streets of Mumbai and listen to a wise and incredibly kind man talk about a constant state of stress, of people, of over population, wondering where his body might ever feel at rest.

    I’m realizing I haven’t had time to pre-mourn. I sometimes do that, just to take the edge off the actual goodbye a little bit. Usually a successful strategy, but this time around there has been no, well, time. And after tonight, when they log off vMix it’ll be over. For me. I’ll come back in a few weeks and the week after that, but I’ll have left the village. I’ll have moved out, possibly to the big city, in the search for something new with someone else, and I’ll be longing to go back. At some point in August I’ll be completely mindfucked that I haven’t spoken to Okan in months, and that Christi’s probably still sleeping as I suddenly remember Nnamdi the next time I see someone wearing a red tie. Possibly I’ll pass Mette on the street and we’ll almost cry and it’ll be like we’re family, but we’re not family, we were neighbors and when we open whatsapp and return to the village we’ll be the same. Or I’ll actually make another show with Katrine, next year, and we’ll feel bad that our connection lives on when the others don’t have the same options. Will the village only exist digitally or will we ever change the format? Will our 3D bodies finally hug, and are we gonna pick up Abhay in the airport when he goes to Berlin in December?
    Or it could go completely differently. We could speak. We could talk, text. Still be sending memes and send love for each our countries’ struggles, heart their stories of going to demonstrations and cross our fingers that the flooding won’t be too bad this time. That they will get the fires under control and that someone, somehow, will see the light and legally stop the accumulation of wealth. We’ll be each other’s hypemen and hypewomen. And everything in between. We’ll surf the Bosporus river of being kind of connected but also not at all, and hopefully the line I wrote was a lie; “and once I log off, to me, you stop existing”.
    Too much? Brutal? Dumb? Simple? I have no idea, but a wise opera singer from Canada/USA/Germany told me that this is it, we’ll have lives everywhere, and we’re going to have to figure out how to make it work.
    Maybe this time the audience can help.
    All the times I’ve been traveling alone and returning, with no one to confirm stories with, no one to hold me accountable or to remember with, when I’ve only had my diaries and scrapbooks to consult, to stay sane and remember that it wasn’t just a dream, all the times I’ve done this it’s been fine, it’s been ok, absurd but ok. But this time maybe the audience could help?
    Is anyone out there? Are you seeing this too? Do you hear Christi as well? Do you see the streets of Lagos and hear the honks from tuktuks in Mumbai? Did you also feel like smelled the romantic cigarette on Okan’s fingers even though he was all the way in Istanbul? Did you listen to Nnamdis line about police brutality too, or were you lost in his charming eyes and beautiful lips?
    As the landslides cover the Bollywood Hills, we’ll still be here. Needing to remember that it happened, and just because something happens digitally it doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s been a beautiful chaos of imaginations and lines that got cut, of cowboy scenes that got cut, of meditations that got cut, of botox that got cut, of cockroaches that got killed and of hearts that were broken and mended and broken again.
    Thank you for letting me into the village. I loved living next door. I promise I’ll come visit.

    THIS IS THE VILLAGE

  • okan + nnamdi + abhay + christi + mette / set piece / title / miniature inhabitants of the global village / globe / eyes of the global cast / katrine as spideydiva / set pieces as kitchen / mette in artificial airplane / katrine filming mette on artificial grass / set pieces

  • “Eat The Document” was my debut of working on an opera. The wonderful and brilliant director, Kristin Marting, let me onto the team and taught me exactly what she needed her assistant (me) to do. Clear lines, great communication and transparency made for a work environment where I quickly learned completely new skills – skills that all looked like the world I’m from (theatre), but tasted like something completely different (opera).
    “Eat The Document” was an “Alternative opera”, and coming from a world of pretty alternative theatre, a lot felt familiar to me. A bunch of the methods and the inisticts I’m trained in following as (assistant) director turned out to play a big part in making the experience as wonderful as it was; to me it seems that working with 8 opera performers managing costume changes, measure countings, acting, singing, hitting marks and living through war traumas through the heightened emotions of the opera genre was similar to, say, 7 south african performers building a western movie set while shooting a movie and playing both white europeans while telling a story about apartheid and the human heart of darkness. Organised chaos, high stakes, attention to detail, a caring and talented team that knows the importance of the story they’re telling – I felt all at home in the strange new world I inhabited during the rehearsal of ETD.

    A BEAUTIFULLY CURIOUS WORLD WHERE…

    the assistant director have never lived in new york before or worked with opera before or read the book it’s based on yet, and so it’s nice for her to know what prototype festival is (embarrassing) and what some basic opera terms mean (embarrassing) even though this is clearly not a basic opera (is there such thing, i guess i mean it’s not”classical”) and what the story is about (why is it so embarrassing to have once not known what you know how? actually dumb)

    … a libretto is a script
    (this one brilliantly written by librettist Kelley Rourke)
    … some words are in italian
    (“TUTTI” is not a name, it means “everybody”, but “ENSEMBLE” also means “everybody”, so that was one of the questions)

    …you can’t just make last minute changes or new endings day before the opening, because a score was composed many months ago and some of it actually pre-covid
    (this one beautifully composed by John Glover)

    rehearsal schedules are very detailed, rarely chronological and actually kept, because you can’t just rehearse something else because the other performers aren’t there because there’s literally nothing to do for those performers if they weren’t already scheduled in because it’s all music and the music director can’t be two places at once

    … costume changes aren’t to be fucked around with, because you can’t just stall the score, so it’s helpful to know how many measures you have to change into a completely different character off stage, because that might be 15 seconds

    … notes are referred to by measure numbers and not page numbers

    … blocking is by surgical precision and there’s no time or space to write full names or unnecessary words

    … where words are poor; where a moment when a single word, within the music, channeled through an insanely brilliant performer, creates a moment so emotional it gave me goosebumps over and over. “Exasperated move” become nothing but words of reference from director to performer. Useful but ridiculously short of meaning.

    I don’t know if any of this is different from how other people usually work – I’ve been told this was not a usual opera. I’ve come to know that the composer is groundbreaking in mixing genres. I learned that the director, being from the world of theatre and not opera, has a completely and more theatre-based approach to rehearsals (which may be why I felt such at home). I think maybe the fact that the librettist was able to change a few lines during the rehearsals was very unusual, helpful and “flexible”.
    This opera was not devised, I don’t think. It was developed. So much had happened before the rehearsals started, years of research and set design models, of composing and writing and talking with the author of the book. But so much also happened once rehearsals started. I’ve never paid this much attention to blocking, to the importance of a look, of a gesture, of routes through the stage and physical relationships between the characters. I think I’ve learned that there’s still so much space for creativity and ideas and impulses and care and love for the story even though the essence of the material had already been developed. This might be why I love a good script as well. Maybe I should really write more. And spend the time giving it life instead of altering it. At least that’s one way to do it. Worth a try. Stay tuned.

  • THE SCRIPT

    THE FINAL LAST MINUTE REHEARSAL
    in a dumpling restaurant next door

    THE PIECES

    1 – Like in the movies

    2 – A father’s funeral

    3 – Loving from afar

    (some of) THE OTHER PERFORMANCES

    THE CELEBRATION