News from the theatre
Several of Odin Teatret’s regular actors are leaving
A combination of age and a failing market requires adjustments to expenses and income.
- It simply isn’t true.
Per Kap Bech Jensen, theatre director of the Nordic Teaterlaboratorium – Odin Teatret, categorically rejects the ongoing rumors that the entire “old team”, i.e. the original actors in the Odin Teatret, have been dismissed from the turn of the year.
Is this the story of one feather becoming five hens?
- Yes, I think the rumors must be because some of the theatre’s actors neither can nor want to continue anymore. For that reason, we are not extending the contracts with Frans Winther, Tage Nielsen, Else Marie Laukvik and Jan Ferslev. However, they will participate in the upcoming Odin Week Festival starting August 12. But the rest of the team continues. There is, after all, a new play premiering this September, directed by Eugenio Barba, and then going on a European tour, explains Per Kap Bech Jensen.
It is no longer the case that all the actors are on the payroll with full pay, regardless of how much or little they contribute to the theater’s work.
- We are dealing with a combination of advanced age and a market where it is difficult to sell the larger ensemble performances. The world is changing, and so are the requirements for what a theatre must be able to do. The contracts will be adjusted or adapted, if you like, so that we will pay the actors for the work that is being done. That is the responsible way to do it since we are payed for with public money, explains the theatre director.
