Vanessa Van Durme

Vanessa Van Durme studied drama and theatre at the Conservatory in Ghent. Vanessa‟s career starts on the scene of the Nederlands Toneel Gent, now known as the NTGent. She made the difficult but inevitable decision to undergo a sex change and as a result left the company and gave up a career in theatre.

Twenty years later she picked up the thread once more and devoted herself to writing comedies. She wrote dozens of television screenplays for various broadcasting companies, including the complete sitcom series Liefde en Geluk for the VRT national channel, and was responsible for directing the actors. She was a popular radio personality for five years and had the longest run- ning comedy act on Belgian radio. She has written about twenty plays for the stage.`

Her breakthrough in theatre came when the Belgian choreographer and theatre-maker Alain Platel cast her in the role of the mother Tosca in Allemaal Indiaan. After touring for two years with this production she moved to the Victoria theatre company in Ghent to act in White Star, which was based on an idea of hers. She then toured Europe for two years with this production.

She wrote her book, Look mummy, I’m dancing, and from it distilled the monologue of the same name, which she will perform in four languages all over Europe and America. In her monologue, in which she speaks openly about her sex change, she hoped to remove public prejudice and show that people who are „slightly different‟ are also ... people. Tolerance and accepting someone who is „different‟ are important items on Vanessa‟s agenda. Her latest production Femme Blanche, is set in colonial Morocco in the last century. Her aim in this piece is to spotlight today‟s rapidly growing racism, intolerance and the „Banlieu hazard‟.

For her theater monologue about Alzheimer Avant que j’oublie (2014) she received the prestigious Prix de la meilleure comedienne du Syndicat de la Critique and in 2015 she was nominated for a Molière Award for Best Actress.

update: 07/2021