Biography English — Gable Roelofsen

Gable Roelofsen (Zeist, 1982) is an actor, singer, director, writer, and (music) theatre producer/creative producer of Dutch-Indonesian descent. He trained at the Maastricht Theatre Academy, the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York City, and completed artistic research on innovation in opera and contemporary music theatre at the Postgraduate School for Performing Arts APT-A.pass in Belgium. In 2015, he graduated from the Opera Management Course of Opera Europa.

Through the European Network of Opera Academies (ENOA), supported by Dutch National Opera & Ballet, he further developed his skills through projects with Muziek Lod Gent and the Opera and Creation workshop at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (where he worked with, among others, Katie Mitchell, Martin Crimp, Robert Carsen, Fabio Vacchi, and Peter Sellars).

He has performed in plays by Shakespeare, Molière, and Chekhov, as well as in theatre works by Ravenhill, Pinter, Enzensberger, Pasolini, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. He toured as Mowgli in the musical Jungle Book and appeared on screen in productions like VPRO’s Villa Achterwerk, Hotnews.nl, the series Stellenbosch, and the film Ver van Familie.

His acting career brought him to theatres and companies such as Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Orkater, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Bat Theater Berlin, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, and Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid.

He studied singing with Daniela Bernoulli, Dennis Wilgenhof, Kirsten Schötteldreier, and Burkhard Fritz. His roles include Toby in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Dutch National Touring Opera and the lead role of Sharik, the dog, in the children’s opera Dog’s Heart at Dutch National Opera & Ballet. He also performed alongside Doris Baaten as a singing sidekick to Sanne Wallis de Vries in her Christmas show Kerst in de Kleine Komedie. He sang concert programs for the Touring Opera, featuring works by Sondheim, Bernstein, and Brecht/Weill—repertoire he considers his area of expertise.

As a playwright and librettist, he learned from Charles Mee Jr., Ko van den Bosch, Willem Bruls, and Neske Beks. He attended directing masterclasses with Johan Simons and Alain Platel and was an invited young artist at the Holland Festival. He also worked as assistant director to Paul Koek.

He writes, directs, and performs for Het Geluid Maastricht, a music theatre platform he co-founded. His plays Wesendonck Lieder Heute and Malta have been translated into German, while Life Is Too Good to Be True was translated into English after winning the Dioraphte Best of Amsterdam Fringe Award and subsequently performed 50 times worldwide. The English translation of his play Gedeelde Kamers was commissioned by London City University and The Gate Theatre.

Het Geluid has collaborated with partners such as Veenfabriek, the Brussels opera house La Monnaie/De Munt, Concertgebouw Brugge, and festivals like European Opera Days and Operadagen Rotterdam. Collaborations also include groups like Muziektheater Transparant, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Het Doelen Kwartet, and Gamelan Ensemble Gending. Recent projects have included engagements with Musiktheatertage Wien, Rümlingen Festival Switzerland, Opera Bergen Norway, Dutch National Opera, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Theatre De Krakeling, and the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra. At Dutch National Opera & Ballet, he developed and directed the new opera The Shell Trial together with his sister, Romy Roelofsen.

They co-directed Bizet/Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen at the Touring Opera and directed productions of Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Messiaen’s Harawi at the Euregional Opera and Music Theatre Festival. They won the Berlin Opera Prize in 2016 and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Inspiration Prize in 2015. In 2011, he was nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

He has experience developing new music theatre productions with composers such as Boudewijn Tarenskeen, Thanasis Delgiannis, Salvador Breed, Monique Krüs, and Annelies Van Parys. More recently, he collaborated with composers like Ted Hearne, Ellen Reid, and Wally Gunn.

Roelofsen has written columns for The Huffington Post and The Guardian’s arts blog, as well as essays and articles for trade journals like Rekto:Verso, Theatermaker, and program booklets for Dutch Touring Opera, La Monnaie/De Munt, and the Opera Forward Festival. From 2020 to 2024, he was an editorial board member of Theaterkrant. He also completed an essay-writing course with the literary initiative De Tank and published work in NyMagazine.

As a guest lecturer, he has taught interdisciplinary, socially engaged, and (music) theatre practices at institutions like the University of Amsterdam, iArts Maastricht, DAS Theatre Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Directing Program, Codarts Rotterdam, the international ENOA network, and The Gate Theatre in London.

He directed two productions incorporating new technologies—virtual reality and drones—at the TechTrip Festival, which he developed for the Touring Opera. The VR/mixed reality production Weltatem won two Dutch Game Awards, marking perhaps the first time the gaming industry celebrated an opera house. De Volkskrant described the production as “opera for the 21st century.” He also developed a robotics project for the Munich Biennale, in collaboration with 4DSOUND.

Het Geluid Maastricht also specializes in innovative, socially engaged projects, the most notable being Common Carnaval. This initiative, which brought together newcomers and longtime Maastricht residents through a temporary carnival association, won the Willem de Vlieger Penning and the Charlemagne Prize of the European Parliament.

In late 2018, they launched Common Chorale, a project with a choir founded in collaboration with a food bank, performing contemporary music and sound art composed specifically for them. Roelofsen directed a production featuring the stories of so-called Dreamers—undocumented youth in the Bay Area/San Francisco. Together with child psychiatrist Glenn Helberg and Studio52nd, he created productions on topics like colonial legacies, queer representation, and gaming addiction, using texts written by children and young people. This documentary co-creation method will culminate in a new opera in 2025, focusing on Brussels families and queer communities, produced by La Monnaie/De Munt with support from the Fast Forward program of the Performing Arts Fund NL.

Roelofsen was a theatre curator for the Al Quds Underground Festival in East Jerusalem from 2009 to 2012, collaborating with artists such as Adelheid Roosen, Laura van Dolron, Naomi van der Linden, and Merlijn Twaalfhoven. He co-initiated the refugee action 24 Hours Unlimited at Amsterdam’s Stadsschouwburg in 2015. During protests against Dutch cultural policy under Halbe Zijlstra, he participated in Platform Ludlum and organized Na de Schreeuw Nu de Stem during provincial elections. Het Geluid gained local recognition by opening a “cultural frituur” (snack bar) in response to funding cuts. Roelofsen has also been a vocal advocate for safe work environments in the cultural sector, drawing from his own experiences.

From 2013 to 2019, he served as Theatre Advisor for the Dutch Council for Culture, chairing a committee from 2017 that drafted a future-focused report on opera and music theatre for the Minister of Culture. Between 2019 and 2022, he was a board member of the renowned Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and Podium Mozaïek. He is currently a board member of Concertgebouw Brugge and chair of The Need for Legacy, a foundation dedicated to recovering forgotten performing arts history and initiating new research. This foundation recently won both the Diversity Code Award and the Proscenium Prize for significant contributions to the Dutch theatre landscape. As chair, he is also part of the executive council of Podiumkunst.net.

Gable Roelofsen is available as a consultant and moderator.

Upcoming directing engagements: Brussels and Philadelphia.