BIOGRAPHY
Adelheid Roosen
Adelheid Roosen is a leading writer/actor/director from Holland, where in 1988 she won the Proceniumprice for her performance in Tergend Langzaam Wakker Worden/Waking Up Painstakingly Slowly, based on the play Clara S. by Elfride Jelinek and directed by Marcelle Meuleman. She also received the Gouden Kalf award for her performance in the film Broos/Vulnerable. Ms. Roosen has developed a number of solo performance pieces from novels by Clarice Lispector and Franz Xavier Kroetz, and regularly writes or co-writes her own pieces. With an international group of thirteen female singers/performers, she developed the theatrical concert Female Factory in Amsterdam, followed by tours to Moscow and Barcelona. In 2002 she played Portia in Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s production of The Merchant of Venice, directed by the Syrian-Dutch director Ola Mafaalani (whose production of Wings of Desire premiered at the A.R.T. last season). Two years later she worked with Mafaalani again in her production of Romeo and Juliet. Roosen was one of the performers in the Dutch version of The Vagina Monologues. Out of that experience she developed her concept for the The Veiled Monologues (2003), which toured through Holland and to Belgium, Berlin, and Turkey. She was later invited to festivals in Egypt and Jordan where her script was a focal point. The Veiled Monologues was also performed in 2003 at the Dutch parliament during the height of one of the debates on constitutional rights regarding religious minorities in Holland, and the performance was televised throughout the country. Her latest play, Is.Man, is about honor killings by migrant men in the Netherlands. While developing the piece, she interviewed offenders in prisons, family members of these men, police, and the Ministry of Justice.
In 2005 she initiated the Zina Platform (www.zinaplatform.nl) for which Roosen serves as editor-in-chief, providing opportunities for Arabian, Turkish, and Kurd artists to express themselves. Roosen has produced a number television performances and documentaries, including Vara’s Nachtshow, and Dolle Zina, which portrays five Muslim women living in Holland. She has also made documentary segments for VPRO’s Lolpaloeza. Since 1986 Ms. Roosen has been Advisor of the Artistic Council and a Lecturer of Performing Arts at the Amsterdam Theatre School, and in 2006 became a mentor at Das Arts.