Playwrights

After graduating from the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts, Jibbe Willems worked as an actor, director, and as an advisor in payments, savings, and loans for a major Dutch bank that was kept afloat with state support, before becoming a full-time playwright.

He works as a playwright, adaptor, and translator for various theatre companies in the Dutch-speaking world and occasionally beyond. He does not confine himself to a single genre, but explores the form and function of language for different audiences. Sometimes large-scale, sometimes intimate, sometimes for young audiences, sometimes for older ones—ranging from drama to opera, from Internationaal Theater Amsterdam to De Parade.

He writes plays, youth theatre, librettos, and texts for musical theatre in a wide variety of styles. Willems employs a raw idiom, has little interest in neatly polished poetry, and with every piece he writes or translates, he undertakes an exploration of the form and function of language.