Season 2024-2025

What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from. 

T.S. Eliot - The Four Quartets

In our new shows you will see time pass by in all its forms: cyclical time, transience, adolescence, destructive wartime, nostalgia for a time gone by, but also the hopeful longing for a new time.

“The end is where we start from.” That also applies to the end of next season. For then we will be closing our beloved Bourla for much-needed renovations. But not without first living it up in style, during the Bye Bye Bourla festival!

Everyone is welcome!

Premiere

[meeuw] Theatre 14 November 2024 until 30 November 2024

[meeuw]

Toneelhuis / Olympique Dramatique / theater arsenaal

Love and longing as devastating driving force during a family reunion. Chekhov’s De Meeuw (The Seagull) is a wonderful, tender play about young people with new ideas and an older generation that feels threatened by this. For the first time, a repertory play has been entirely translated into and performed in Flemish Sign Language, presented by a mixed cast of deaf actors and actors with normal hearing. 
 

The Grief of Red Granny Theatre 14 February 2025 until 23 February 2025

The Grief of Red Granny

Toneelhuis / LOD muziektheater / Gorges Ocloo

In Gorges Ocloo’s new AfrOpera, the central figure is Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth. When her husband King Albert fell to his death, she scarcely had chance to mourn. Ocloo situates her in the Garden of Eden, where she reflects on her life and sorrow together with six angels. Their
musical leitmotif is the radically rearranged Stabat Mater by Pergolesi. A universal sound of simultaneous sorrow and celebration.

Moeder Courage Theatre 12 March 2025 until 15 March 2025

Moeder Courage

KVS / Toneelhuis / Lisaboa Houbrechts

How do you live and survive in a war as a child? As a young woman? As a mother? Lisaboa Houbrechts presents Brecht’s antiwar play as a moving and confrontational fable about the vulnerability and resistance of one of the most iconic female characters in world repertoire, set in a musical and visual universe.

Mantike Bloom Boom Theatre 23 April 2025 until 30 April 2025

Mantike Bloom Boom

Toneelhuis / Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe

Everything seems to be going to pot. And yet – there’s a shining light on the horizon. A sign of hope. Now the whole shebang can be blown away. Marjan De Schutter storms on stage like a whirlwind in various guises. There is only one last link between dying bees and our fate. Mantike Bloom Boom. Prophecies. Explosions. Vital splatters. Just in time, the end is avoided.

Reprises

Alle schone dingen Theatre 25 February 2025 until 1 March 2025

Alle schone dingen

Toneelhuis / Olympique Dramatique / Tom Dewispelaere

In order to give his suicidal mother new hope, a boy makes a list of all the wonderful things that make life worth living. Based on the successful solo Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan. A witty, touching and comforting tale.

The Sheep Song Theatre 26 March 2025 until 30 March 2025

The Sheep Song

Toneelhuis / FC Bergman

A miniature about the eternal struggle with – and endless longing for – change.

Bye Bye Bourla

Scarlet Anansi Ocloo Theatre 3 May 2025 until 4 May 2025

Scarlet Anansi Ocloo

Toneelhuis / Gorges Ocloo

Gorges Ocloo is reprising his very first show from 2014, with which he stormed into the Flemish theatre world like a whirlwind. Based on the story of Medea, whom Ocloo considers the mother of all genocides. With Hilde Van Mieghem, on the boards again after a long time.

Bruegel Theatre 15 May 2025 until 16 May 2025

Bruegel

Toneelhuis / Lisaboa Houbrechts

Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) transports you into the past. Visually stunning theatre with a wealth of new ideas.

Gilles! Theatre 22 May 2025 until 25 May 2025

Gilles!

Jan Decleir

Thirty-seven years after the premiere of the monologue Hugo Claus wrote especially for him, Jan Decleir once again is taking on the role of Gilles de Rais. A gripping text for all times about war, love and jealousy, loss, depravity, faith and horror.

The Lieutenant Of Inishmore Theatre 28 May 2025 until 5 June 2025

The Lieutenant Of Inishmore

Toneelhuis / Olympique Dramatique

With this legendary production in 2006, Olympique Dramatique brought the theme of terrorist extremism down to the living room level. Absolutely politically incorrect, over the top, hilarious, razor sharp and with menacing undertones. Like a Tarantino script, but for the stage.

A Revue Theatre 13 June 2025 until 14 June 2025

A Revue

d e t h e a t e r m a k e r / Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe

A sublimely spectacular happening, somewhere between a decadent fashion show, a queer cabaret and a shamanistic fertility ritual.

UNLOCK THE CITY!

Expo Seefhoek Series Exhibition 23 November 2024 until 21 December 2024

Expo Seefhoek Series

Toneelhuis / Thomas Verstraeten / Fred & Ferry Gallery

In collaboration with Fred & Ferry Gallery, Thomas Verstraeten is putting together an exhibition about the Seefhoek Series. Using videos, photographic material, scale models and installations, he tries to reveal new layers of meaning in the project and shows the undeniable complexity of life in the city.

Guest

Infamous offspring Theatre 7 January 2025 until 8 January 2025

Infamous offspring

KVS / Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus

A modern patchwork family inspired by Greek mythology and re-mastered through the universe of Ultima Vez and poet Fiona Benson: this is Infamous Offspring. In Wim Vandekeybus' latest creation, a whole new cast of actors and dancers ventures into the labyrinth of ancient tales. On stage as on screen, dance merges with poems to create a unique new world. 

Ifigeneia Theatre 24 January 2025 until 25 January 2025

Ifigeneia

KVS / Maaike Neuville / Tessa Hall

What if Iphigenia had been able to write her own story? If she had not sacrificed herself for her father, for her fatherland? What if she had been allowed to be a woman – a young woman with a voice, with words. More words than: ‘I willingly offer my body for my city and for all of Greece’. What then?

Liefde/Amour Theatre 31 January 2025 until 1 February 2025

Liefde/Amour

KVS / Pitcho Womba Konga

How far should you go, how much should you endure before you can say you’ve tried everything? They say there’s no such thing as failure, that every break-up is an experience that strengthens us for new adventures. 

How goes the world - Histoire(s) du Théâtre V Theatre 18 March 2025 until 19 March 2025

How goes the world - Histoire(s) du Théâtre V

NTGent / Tim Etchells

​After forty years of making theatre, the British artist and author Tim Etchells, founder of Forced Entertainment, reflects on the history of (his) theatre at the invitation of NTGent.

Concert

TOURIST LEMC - ONRUST Music 21 December 2024

TOURIST LEMC - ONRUST

Tourist LeMC

With this new work, Johannes Faes examines, reveals and unravels the twists and turns of the mind and dives into his rich repertoire. Intimate, uninhibited, authentic and straightforward.

Isabelle Lewis Music 17 May 2025

Isabelle Lewis

Valgeir Sigurðsson / Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe / Elisabeth Klinck

The promising alliance brings a one of a kind combination of electronic and contemporary classical music: a nostalgic shapeshifter with three faces, each personifying a unique sound world. A charismatic performance with poetic and mysterious lyrics, operatic influences and sophisticated electronics.

Extra

Guided tour Guided tour 23 November 2024 until 26 April 2025

Guided tour

Toneelhuis offers you a peek behind the scenes with pleasure. Take a guided tour of the Bourla and find out everything about the building’s history and its historic theatrical constructions.

Lingua Short Film Festival Movie 9 December 2024

Lingua Short Film Festival

Since 2011, student club Lingua has organized its annual Short Film Festival. On this evening, young creators get a chance to show their short film to a wide audience of students, family and other guests.