AMANDA PAYNE - Librettist, Performer.
Original works
Playwright & Librettist
Performer
Bio
Contact
@amandaepayne
AMANDA PAYNE - Librettist, Performer.
Original works
Playwright & Librettist
Performer
Bio
Contact
@amandaepayne
PLAYWRIGHT & LIBRETTIST
Commissions and text written for directors, theatre companies, and musical ensembles to stage.
by Maaspoort Venlo
Standing on a bridge between two nations, a man finds himself stranded with nowhere to go. The country where he built a life deports him; the country of his birth refuses him entry. While the rest of the world navigates a system of fluid borders he is caught in the no-man's-land in between.
Directed by Eva Custers with three actors and live music, this tragicomedy tackles the bureaucracy of borderlands. Newly adapted by Amanda Payne from Ödön von Horváth’s nearly century-old masterpiece, Hin und Her.
Cast: Sem Abelskamp, Céline Amadi, Judith Westbroek | Director: Eva Custers | Text: Amanda Payne | Music: Timo Tembuyser | Dramaturgy: Ludo Costongs | Set & Costume Design: Lobke Houkes.
Grond (2025)
by Nanoek
How do you find your footing when the ground gives way? Grond is a bold, brave musical about grief. When her mother dies unexpectedly, Ally plummets into the disorienting landscape of mourning. Finding no handbook for grief, she clings to an eccentric undertaker who guides her through the postmortem dreamscape. But while the logistics of death offer temporary comfort, nothing can fill the void.
Cast: Sara Afiba, Saskia Mees Christeller, Jonathan Demoor, Charlotte Dommershausen, Melissa Lodder, Wies Jansen Holleboom | Writers: Marjolein Beumer, Amanda Payne, Teuntje Post | Composers: Charlotte Dommershausen, Job Greuter | Directors: Anouk Beugels, Suzanne Heijdra | Choreography: Cody Schuitemaker | Set & Costume Design: Leoni Pirenne | Dramaturgy: Eline de Jong, Anouk Mulder | Sound Design: Maarten Houdijk, Jeroen Hoekstra | Lighting Design: Jordy Veenstra | Music producer: Jan van Eerd | Photography: Daniela Petrovic.
Alle Markten Thuis is a theatrical concert featuring six brand-new musical works inspired by encounters with market vendors, from a Volendam fishmonger to an Amsterdam poffertjes baker. Real-life conversations were set to verbatim text and brought to life by composers.
Concept: Isabel Pronk, Valentine Blangé | Text: Amanda Payne | Composers: Camiel Jansen, Sarah Neutkens, Jasmine Karimova, Michele Mazzini, Benjamin de Boer, Valentine Blangé | Performers: Isabel Pronk (vocals), Valentine Blangé (violin), Michela Zanoni (harp), Benjamin de Boer (double bass) | Set & Costume Design: Quinten de Smedt.
Isabel Pronk takes you on a journey through the hauntingly beautiful emotions of loneliness and vulnerability that arise in the quiet of the night. But from this solitude emerges a powerful strength, the courage to begin again.
Concept: Isabel Pronk | Text: Amanda Payne | Director: Fabienne Vegt | New Music: Sarah Neutkens | Performers: Isabel Pronk (vocals), Valentine Blangé (violin), Vera Kooper (piano), Ketevan Roinishvili (cello) | Photography: Juri Hiensch.
Pink Elephants on Parade is an anti-coming-of-age story in the form of an electro-pop performance that transports you into a psychedelic fairy tale with live visuals and music.
In 2019, Jip Bartels, de Transmissie, and Amanda Payne won the Walhalla Pitch with their hallucinatory presentation of Pink Elephants on Parade, an ode to imagination and a requiem for childlike fantasy.
Director & Dramaturg: Anouk Beugels | Libretto: Amanda Payne | Cast : Jip Bartels, Amanda Payne, Ayla van Summeren | Music: David Schwarz, Jip Bartels | Video Design: Derk Stenvers | Set Design: Quinten de Smedt | Costume Design: Ferry Pappalardo. | Photography: Vincent van Woerkom.
Niet Antigone is a contemporary response to Sophocles’ timeless tragedy. At its heart are two young women, artistically aligned in their defiance of the status quo. But unity gives way to tension, as their collaboration unravels into a battle between writer and composer.
What are they truly trying to say through this reinterpretation? And who, in the end, most embodies Antigone: the one who writes the words, or the one who scores the emotion?
WORM.UBIK (O. festival for Opera. Music. Theatre) Rotterdam
Cast: Charlotte Dommershausen, Tjyying Liu, Timo Tembuyser, Lucretia van der Vloot, Suzanne Heijdra, Job Greuter, Mees Christeller, Amanda Payne | Director: Anouk Beugels | Text: Amanda Payne | Music: Charlotte Dommershausen | Writing Coach: Ramsey Nasr | Music Coach: Jeroen Sleyfer.
P(L)AYHAUS is a music-theatre collective created by Charlotte Dommershausen and Amanda Payne. They collide urgent social issues with atomic physics, fuse spoken word with the drama of Poulenc, and stage a musical with zero flying sets, no tap dancing, just raw energy.
Text: Amanda Payne | Music: Charlotte Dommershausen
The Unsatisfied Girls Club asks: how can a privileged young woman speak sincerely about social injustice? In this electro-pop-tinged, poetry-laced performance, P(L)AYHAUS dives in (naive but earnest) on a search for a stance, for something authentic, for the first step toward… well, toward what, exactly?
Text: Amanda Payne | Music: Charlotte Dommershausen