Straat
STRAAT is a 45-60 min interactive storytelling show performed by Pleun van Vliet, Maike Koolhaas, Jorge Chito and Consuelo Silva.
STRAAT premiered on October 8th 2021 at the Dutch forensic symposium “Play, Disorder, and Crime: At The Crossroads of Creativity and Foul Play”.
The Show
They could have chosen their position like they always have. But they do no longer want to perform that role. The according rules keep them imprisoned in somebody else’s game. They want to enter the stage with an open mind.
To that end, all need to overcome something. There is a lot to lose once you start bending the rules: sympathy, respect, friendship, love, a home, a future, a life.
Besides that, nobody knows what it means to win; only that you can’t do it on your own.
But how do you play together when you’ve been given different sets of rules?
What strategy do you use?
And at what cost?
The Making Of
This journey started with Pleun receiving an invitation for a forensic congress about criminality and play. Pleun decided to leave her forensic-psychologist-identity behind for this one, and answer the call as a storyteller. After all, a scientific symposium about the importance of play needs players, right?
Pleun hooked up with Maike to come up with a plan for the congress, and then the congress threw Jorge and Consuelo in their lap as forensic experience experts-turned-storytellers. Wow, what a great team! Everyone was turning into somebody else already!
We decided to build our show around the conception that life itself is a game, with different roles for everyone, and that the cards you are dealt with are as decisive as your choice how to use them.
As such, our stories were put along a line of personal transformation: you might start out as an adopted child from a poor country and become pregnant as a teenager, but that does not prevent you from building a successful career and a loving home; you may also start out strong but lose your way along the line, and even end up in prison for committing murder, but still you have an opportunity to use your experiences to help others; or you may get the best cards possible in the beginning, but prove unable to ‘play the game’ according to the set rules anyway, and opt out for the winning hand.
Our intense identity work around the images we had about ourselves and others proved enormously fruitful and profound. Making this show certainly fortified our conviction that stories provide the ultimate key to humanity, and that games are only really fun if all participants are allowed to play along in their own way.
Audience rating on a scale from 1-10 at the premiere: 8,7
Credits
Concept, text & performance: Pleun van Vliet, Maike Koolhaas, Jorge Chito and Consuelo Silva
Stage direction: Maike Koolhaas
Many thanks to: we thank each other for this wonderful ride.
Booking Information
STRAAT is performed by Pleun van Vliet, Maike Koolhaas, Jorge Chito and Consuelo Silva.
STRAAT is a 45-60 min interactive storytelling show that is played without a break. Depending on the wishes and needs of the client, more or less, and specific interaction with the audience can be added.
STRAAT is performed in Dutch.
STRAAT can be performed on stage, but is also very suitable for creative locations, such as symposia, work places, schools, forensic mental institutions, and prisons.
Depending on the size of the audience, STRAAT needs amplification.
STRAAT is not suitable for small children.
Upon request.
Prices for artistic performances include 9% VAT.
Prices for performances in the context of seminars and conferences include 21% VAT.
STRAT©2021 is an original and personal work, conceptualized and written by Pleun van Vliet, Maike Koolhaas, Jorge Chito and Consuelo Silva.
By the Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet) copyrights for the complete text as well as significant, recognizable findings and parts of the text, and all kinds of visualization of the performance (including photographs and videos for promotional purposes) finally reside with the authors.
It is forbidden by law to copy, distribute, print or publish any written transcripts, quotes from, or pieces of STRAAT©2021, or photos or videos of its performances without written permission of the authors.
For questions about copyrights of STRAAT©2021, please contact the authors via stories@mindtraveller.nl.