Janse, Saskia (Netherlands)

Saskia Janse is co-founder of Speeltheater Holland, a traveling theatre company based in the Netherlands. Founded in 1976, the company performs theatre for children using a combination of acting and puppetry. Their productions perform in the USA, all over Europe, the Caribbean and South Africa. Their production Perô or The Mysteries of the Night has been touring all over the world, including the US in April/May 2011. Speeltheater Holland has a long-lasting collaboration with the Seattle Children’s Theater since 1997. It started with the adaptation of Janell Cannon’s famous book Stellaluna and after that they created five more productions in Seattle.

Saskia Janse has written most of the plays of Speeltheater Holland and several have been produced abroad by other companies: Apple to Grandma , Stellaluna, Nicky Somewhere Else, Glittra’s Mission (USA, Germany, Canada); Red Earth (South Africa); and Rèk Buriku Rèké (The Antilles).

The group and author have received two oeuvre awards and several awards for productions. Saskia is represented in the USA by PYA (Plays for Young Audiences).

See English reviews at http://www.speeltheater.nl/Eshow.html (scroll down)