Frascati: Theatre in De Nes, Amsterdam

Frascati is a theatre and production house on the Nes in the centre of Amsterdam, with four halls where you can see new work by young theatre makers alongside national and international companies. Go for theatre, dance and performance that takes risks, followed by a drink in the cafe around the corner. As the production house Frascati Producties, it gives young makers room to grow into independent artists and works on about thirty productions and co-productions a year. The makers are hard to pin down: they work across disciplines, often internationally. Halls 1, 2 and 3 are at Nes 63, while Frascati 4 and Het Verbond are at Nes 71, and Frascati also runs Theater van Deyssel in Nieuw-West. Frascati Restaurant, right next door at Nes 59, cooks mostly vegetarian food, and Frascati Café is on the Sint Barberenstraat. The coffee house Frascati opened here in 1810, and fourteen years later it added a grand party hall for 1,500 people. It became notorious, attracting fairground crowds as well as painters such as Breitner, and it closed in 1879 when the city banned the fair. The building then served for auctions, and the tobacco sales were known as the Hell of Frascati. It reopened as a theatre in 1981, with the balconies from the auction days still in place. The box office desk opens at 19:00 at the latest and always an hour before a show, and it closes once the last performance has started. It is on the phone from Tuesday to Friday, 13:00 to 17:00. The halls hold 204, 82, 48 and 72 people. The restaurant opens from Tuesday to Saturday at 17:00, with the kitchen running until 21:30, and the bar opens on those days from 19:00 to 01:00. The Rokin stop, a minute's walk away, serves metro 52 and trams 4 and 14.