Trivia

After graduating from drama school in Arnhem, Prins focused on directing productions for theatre, television and radio.

Prins graduated from drama school in Arnhem in 1961. But she chose to become a director because she suffered from stage fright and was dissatisfied with the productions she appeared in.

In 1965, she founded her own company, Theater Terzijde, the first political theater company in the Netherlands, where, in addition to actors, she brought in visual artists and musicians. She sought a way of working that could foster a different relationship between creators and between creators and audience members. She wanted to create pieces that questioned social reality without sacrificing poetry. Even then, she was acutely aware of her own privileged position and, in that light, questioned from which perspective a story should be told. The opening performance, "A Case of Lorca Is Unknown to Us," addressed the murder of the poet Federico García Lorca at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. A reviewer who questioned whether it was the task of theater to "enlighten the audience about the world in which they live," as Theater Terzijde set out to do, had to surrender to the "excellent moments of theater" and "all the youthful freshness and ingenuity" of the director.

In 1985, she founded another theater group, De Salon, together with Edwin de Vries and Henk van der Meulen.

In 2002 her autobiography "Zelfbeheersing" (=Self-Control) was published.

Annemarie Prins was a Dutch actress, director, and writer.

Annemarie Prins was best known to the general public for her roles in television series. She played Aunt Maud in "Oud Geld" (1998-1999), the elderly Annie M.G. Schmidt in the series "Annie M.G." (2010), and Mrs. Slothouwer in "Het geheim dagboek van Hendrik Groen" (2017-2019).

For the Holland Festival she directed two operas by Peter Schat: Houdini in 1976 and Aap verslagen de knekelgeest in 1978. Prins subsequently founded the theatre company De Salon, with which she created pieces based on Samuel Beckett, whom she regarded as her example.

In addition to directing, writing and acting, she was also active as a teacher. Over the years, Annemarie Prins, both as a teacher and through the amateur performances she created, helped countless artists and performers get started. "She or he started with me," she often said when a younger colleague was mentioned.

The actress and director died at her own request after her health rapidly deteriorated.

Dissatisfied with the productions she appeared in, she became a director. She learned this profession, for which there was no formal training, at Leiden University's student theatre and in Poland, where a more vibrant, political theatre culture existed.

Language remained a great love for her. She learned her lines with enormous precision and perseverance, "so I can juggle them." For her last performance, she started rehearsals months before the start of the show, for fear of losing the lyrics.

In 2024, at the age of 92, she performed her solo show "Over de bergen" (Over the Mountains).

At the intersection of directing and teaching, her work also took place in Cambodia, where she stayed regularly between 2005 and 2012. With Cambodian actresses, she created two productions and a radio play about their experiences during the bloody Khmer Rouge dictatorship. One of these productions also traveled to Rwanda, where the process of coming to terms with the violent past had already taken shape. Rwandan actors completed the cast. The shared trauma of genocide proved able to bridge the cultural divide.

She directed in the 80's high-profile productions with the Groningen amateur company Waark. Despite its amateur status, her first production of the same name (Waark) became a Holland Festival production. Meanwhile, she was raising two children as a single mother.

In 1969, her own theater company "Terzijde" ceased to exist (it returned once in 1975 with "Schrijf aan mij, houd van mij" (= Write to Me, Love Me) about the Dutch and Swiss writer of the Enlightenment Belle van Zuylen. Prins subsequently worked for various (amateur) theater companies.

In 1965, she founded Theater Terzijde, one of the first independent theater companies in the Netherlands. It was known for innovative and political performances about Vietnam and Franco's Spain, among other topics.

Her style as a director was innovative, radical and uncompromisingly honest. She also experimented with text and the use of the human voice as music.

In 1997 she published the monologues Harmoniehof (awarded the Albert van Dalsum Prize) and in 2003 Pikkepoezenwals.

Working with Beckett's prose led to a different approach to text than before, in which musicality was as important as the meaning of the words. When she began performing again in the mid-1990s, she developed this further in unforgettable autobiographical (semi-)monologues: Harmoniehof, Pikkepoezenwals, Oud en Wit, Dood en zo (Old and White), and finally Over de bergen (Over the Mountains).

Annemarie Prins could also be utterly impossible, for herself and for others. Some relationships, both professional and personal, never recovered, while others became more stable. Those who embraced her cherished her stubbornness, her wit, her often dark humor, and ultimately, her kind side, which gained more space as the years passed.

She grasped the impact of her old, naked body in the shower, a cigarette within reach, on Annie M.G., and put all vanity aside for it. This unashamedness, alongside her craftsmanship, made her a sought-after actress well into her later years.

Prins detested sentimentality, especially her own. She was radical, always searching for the core. Radically searching for what she was passionate about in the theater. Radically honest, for example, in her feedback to actors and students. Radically shameless when a role demanded it.