All events

Plein Theater

Sajetplein 39
Amsterdam
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Theater with occasional queer events.

Upcoming events in Plein Theater

  1. Queering Puppets Festival

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Queering Puppets Festival

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    The international Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam will once again provide a stage for visual theatre, puppetry, and performance at Plein Theater from 1 to 6 April. The theme of this 5th anniversary edition, ‘The Nature of Things’ offers a radical response to Eurocentric and colonial perspectives on sexuality, gender, and racial framing, while questioning the assumption that humans stand at the centre of nature.

    Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam is queer, feminist, activist and above all stands out in quirkiness. It is the only festival in the Netherlands that links puppetry and object theatre for adults to queer imagination. In the safe space created by puppetry, everyone can be who they, she or he want to be. Expect a challenging mix of bodies, stories that refuse to conform to existing dominant structures, visual and erotic outbursts, edgy performances, stimulating lectures, queer food, and clubby afters.

    The festival aims to break with binary thinking. Man versus woman, human versus animal, nature versus capitalism, and normal versus deviant. These boundaries are implicitly violent, oppressive, and never neutral—they are instruments of power, linked to exclusion, discipline, and destruction.

    But the nature of things cannot be pinned down. It is fluid, changeable, rebellious. It reveals itself in bodies that do not fit into a single category, in biodiversity that refuses to be silenced, in voices that have been suppressed for centuries.

    Visual theatre makers and performers from across the world will come together during the festival to present bold, imaginative and pleasantly unsettling shows and performances in which puppetry and object theatre break through the boundaries of identity.

    Come to the Plein Theater and embrace the magic, not as an escape, but as resistance, as a collective source of strength.

  2. My body is a temple, until it isn’t

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    My body is a temple, until it isn’t

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    n auto-fictional theatre performance by two (trans) non-binary lovers during their personal search for physicality, identity, and gender. Against the backdrop of an increasingly radicalizing world, they explore a more unguarded, unapologetic attitude by claiming their bodies as a construction site rather than a temple.

    At the center of the stage stand two folded, twisted aluminum cubes, partially covered by semi-transparent latex curtains. The set evokes both a nightmare-like operating room and an industrial cocoon or a life-size three-dimensional puzzle. In any case, this space embodies the inner world of An and Lucian—this is their space. Here, they do not have to apologize and can shamelessly explore their trans identity.

    Both have a curious and complex relationship with their bodies, as a result of dysphoria, endless attempts to accept their biologically assigned sex, socially imposed transphobia, or simply because bodies can be alienating. In any case, they attempt to gain control over this physicality by adapting it to their own vision. They experiment with orthoses—sculptural bodily extensions that allow them to redefine everything. This act of redefining takes place out loud, with the audience as accomplice. New extensions are tested, old beliefs are dismantled. Again and again, the knife goes in—literally and figuratively.

    Their bodies are approached as a construction site: fluid, unfinished and in constant transition. This claim shifts the perspective away from sexualization, misgendering, and dysphoria, toward play, pleasure, euphoria, and self-determination.

  3. And God saw that it was almost good...

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    And God saw that it was almost good...

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Maybe a remake is needed? But how? One big foot on the bottom end? Straight up or on fours? Or six or eight? Appendixes? Hair or no hair, can it change color? How is that better?

    In the cosmic studio experiments with forms and ideas take place. The work of art, is subjected to a profound introspection. Bizarre and failed creatures pass by, while god (she/he/X) searches for improvement. A fresh look at the infinite story of creation.

  4. Queere Tiere

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Queere Tiere

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    With Queere Tiere (Queer Animals), Daniel Hellmann, Coco Schwarz and their artistic alteregos Soya the Cow & Piano Prince invite us to dive into a fascinating world where hermaphroditic snails, homosexual hyenas and transgender chimpanzees coexist. Between stories and songs, between post-dramatic opera and drag show, they create a multi-faceted stage space around the diversity of sexuality, love and lifestyles in the animal kingdom. Starting from their personal point of view as queer human animals, they tell stories about real queer animals and animals from myths and fairy tales.

    Queere Tiere presents an image of nature freed from the constraints of heteronormative interpretation and transmission, making visible and celebrating life in all its richness and variety.

    English spoken.

  5. Raíz de la Ceniza

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Raíz de la Ceniza

    By QPFA @ Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    The play Raíz de la Ceniza (Root from Ash) arises from the need to recover and make visible the memory of the Lenca people, one of the oldest Indigenous peoples of Honduras, whose history has been marked both by resistance and by the violence of colonization and the subsequent processes of cultural erasure.

    In various oral accounts collected in Lenca communities, the memory is kept of women who were murdered for defending life, the land, and the continuity of their culture. The figure of the woman becomes a double symbol: on the one hand, victim of historical oppression and cultural extinction; on the other, guardian of ancestral knowledge and of the spiritual strength that sustains the people.

    To represent the Lenca woman on stage is both an act of homage and an act of denunciation. Her story embodies the fracture caused by conquest and by a modernity that devastates, but also the hope that through art, the voices of those who were silenced can be reclaimed.

    At the same time, Raíz de la Ceniza seeks to address our present: in a world threatened by the climate crisis, Indigenous peoples teach us that caring for water, the forest, and the land is not only an ecological duty, but also a spiritual and communal act.

    To remember the women who were killed defending nature, to remember the cultural extinction that was imposed, is also to remember that we still have time to reconnect with what is essential.

    The play thus becomes a scenic ritual that weaves together memory and action, pain and hope, and the ancestral root with the future.

Past events in Plein Theater

  1. Bring Drag Back to the Theatre #1: Drag Bingo

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Bring Drag Back to the Theatre #1: Drag Bingo

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Hot GLAM! Plein Theater and Lesbique are hosting a new series of Drag Nights!

    Starting the 20th of February with the infamous Drag Bingo! Yes prices to be won, shows to see and an evening full of fun. But this ain’t your granny’s bingo darling. Get ready for a sassy and musical bingo show!

    Your hosts of the evening are no less than the dazzling queens Heisa Jynx and Ma'MaQueen.

  2. Queer & Friends Café InClusion

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Queer & Friends Café InClusion

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Het jaar 2025 loopt ten einde, en dat willen we graag samen afsluiten met onze vrienden, collega's, bezoekers en buurtgenoten. Plein Theater, TransAmsterdam en Lesbique slaan de handen ineen en vieren samen het einde van het jaar bij Queer & Friends Café Inclusion - End of the Year Celebration!

    Op zaterdag 27 december ben je van harte welkom bij het gezellige en queer-friendly oudjaarsparty met muziek, dans en verbinding.

    Wat kun je verwachten?

    - Bellydanceworkshop door TransAmsterdam teamlid Sona
    - Henna painting door TransAmsterdam teamlid Sam
    - DJ'S & Acts in de zaal

    Kom genieten van een warme, inclusieve en feestelijke avond vol creativiteit, muziek en gezelligheid.

  3. Het Eerste Avondmaal

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Het Eerste Avondmaal

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Hoe verteer je verandering? Kun je voorproeven, en dan toch iets anders bestellen? Welkom aan de tafel van Het Eerste Avondmaal. Een interactieve voorstelling over omgaan met verandering, geïnspireerd door de transitie van oprichter Mart (hen/hun).

    Schuif aan, breek het brood met de muzikanten en laat je meevoeren langs vijf gangen van verandering, in verhaal muziek en improvisatie.

    Mart nodigt je uit bij hen aan tafel in de overtuiging dat we kunnen leren om samen verandering te dragen. Tijdens de maaltijd neemt hen je mee langs 5 fasen uit hun eigen ervaring als transpersoon.

    Gedragen door kwetsbare Nederlandstalige teksten, warme koorklanken en uitbundige ritmes nodigt hen je uit niet alleen de maaltijd maar ook je eigen gedachten te delen met je tafelgenoten. Zo geeft Mart hun publiek nieuwe handvatten om in tijden van maatschappelijke en persoonlijke verandering verbinding te zoeken.

  4. CINEMIEN: 7 minutes

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    CINEMIEN: 7 minutes

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    When 55-year-old police officer Jean finds his son Maxime and his boyfriend Kevin dead in a hotel room, his world completely collapses. Maxime died 7 minutes after his lover overdosed on GHB. What happened in those 7 minutes?

  5. La Carn / Lluís Garau

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    La Carn / Lluís Garau

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Ferran has convinced everyone that he makes his living as a gamer in the basement of his parents' house, but in reality he makes his money from the videos and sex videos he posts on his OnlyFans page. La Carn is a gateway to the intimacy of a young man who puts a price on his own body.

  6. My Darling Demon / Lars Brinkman

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    My Darling Demon / Lars Brinkman

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    A monstrous drag-horror performance.
    On stage, drag queen Lola is a beast, but behind the scenes, her insecurities and fears are just around the corner. Literally. While she is busy with her make-up, an insect-like monster slithers into her dressing room. While lip-syncing, she tackles it.

  7. CINEMIEN: L’AMOUR/LA MORT

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    CINEMIEN: L’AMOUR/LA MORT

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    In a mosaic of unforgettable love stories, this documentary chronicles the profound and often painful connection between love and loss. And delves into the depths of human connection with intimate interviews. The personal stories are interwoven with timeless masterpieces of art and music.

  8. CINEMIEN: CIURÈ

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    CINEMIEN: CIURÈ

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Life in the suburbs of Palermo is hard: Salvo, a young father, fights his way through temporary jobs and dubious criminal dealings to support his son. When the spiral of violence turns against him, he meets Ciurè, a transgender dancer who helps him and gives him access to a colourful gay club where she performs every night.

  9. CINEMIEN: CALL ME AGNES

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    CINEMIEN: CALL ME AGNES

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    An Indonesian trans woman, has built a new life for herself in the Netherlands. When her brother from Indonesia suddenly shows up on her doorstep, she faces a heartbreaking choice: will she continue to live in secret, or will she reveal who she really is?

  10. Transketeers: Three Queers and a drag-cow

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Transketeers: Three Queers and a drag-cow

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    On Trans women of colour. Soya the Drag cow and Queere Tiere.

    Short films: I am not a number: Alejandra, I am not a number: Mavi, Piet & Soya - a queer interspecies encounter

  14. Cinemien: Out & Darklands + drinks

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    Cinemien: Out & Darklands + drinks

    Plein Theater, Sajetplein 39, Amsterdam

    19:00 - 22:30 | FILM - OUT
    21:00 - 22:30 | FILM - DARKLANDS (documentary)

    Afterwards: DJs & DRINKS

    OUT follows two young queer men who leave life in a small Dutch village behind for promising Amsterdam. In this city, they hope not only to fulfil their dream of becoming filmmakers, but also to find a community that accepts them as they are. It is an intimate look at the struggle for self-acceptance against the backdrop of a new environment.


    Darklands: Are You Ready to Go Deep?
    Invites you into a world few have witnessed - a captivating exploration of Antwerp's famed gay fetish festival, held within the gritty walls of Waagnatie. Moving beyond surface stereotypes and provocations, this documentary reveals the deeply human stories of identity, desire and resilience that pulse through this 8,000-member underground gathering.