Buddy Vedder hopes for rain in open air theater | show

A glorified holiday job, his participation in the spectacle musical It was Sunday in the South? On the other end of the line, Buddy Vedder’s voice springs up. ,,Not at all! I work with actors from Toneelgroep Maastricht. Do you know how much I can learn from them?”

Vedder (still only 28) will be one of the protagonists in the musical that will be performed 20 times next summer in open-air theater De Doolhof in Tegelen, in the north of Limburg. The story revolves around the flood in that province. Not the one from almost 2 years ago, but from 1993 – when large parts of Limburg were flooded in a matter of days and 12,000 people had to be evacuated.

But wait a minute; Vedder dates from 1994, so from after this water problem. “Sure, but I definitely have a feeling about it. My grandfather and grandmother lived in Valkenburg aan de Geul, so I came there regularly as a child and I also know that they were also affected by the nuisance. And the fact that things recently went wrong again with the water in Limburg, which of course only makes this production more palpable. Look, of course I hope for the audience that they watch our play on a nice summer evening. But it would actually be nice if it rains hard for once. Simply, for the atmosphere of the water that keeps coming.”

That will happen anyway, because during the performance 200,000 liters of water will flow into the theater. Hence the term spectacle musical. Like Diary of a Sheepdog which was also the case last time in the MECC in Maastricht. That production was also made by Toneelgroep Maastricht, with director Servé Hermans – who also plays musical grease and directed the King’s Day festivities in Maastricht last year. And also think about it Dutch Hopepiece that was shown last summer at the so-called Hollands Hoop farm in the Groningen countryside, De Tocht op het ice in Friesland (from October) and the war drama 40-45 which will be played in Barneveld next year.

“I think you really see the influence of streaming services like Netflix on the musical landscape here,” Vedder values. “If you want to compete with such companies, it makes sense for makers to also come up with something spectacular.”

Hermans praises Vedder (who played between 2015 and 2017 in Good times Bad Timesrecently appeared as Judas in The passionjuror The Masked singer is and in 2020 Who is the mole? won) as an ‘all-round artist and entertainer of the purest kind’. ,,Buddy will play Saint Anthony in It was Sunday in the South. As Saint Anthony, he becomes the narrator and conscience of the musical. He stops time and turns it on again, he manipulates and in this way takes the audience into the story.”

It was previously announced that Renée van Wegberg and Suzan Seegers, among others, play major roles in the musical, which is musically largely based on the work of Rowwen Hèze. The title is also a song by this band from Limburg. Rowwen Hèze releases a new single today, together with musical actress Magtel de Laat, who can also be heard in the song. The title is Mom’s water. ,,Based on a limerick that we had printed on t-shirts during the flood disaster of 1993 and sold during performances”, says Rowwen Hèze frontman Jack Poels. “The proceeds then went to the victims. Now, so many years later, it’s happening again. The limerick now becomes the chorus.”

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