Daddy cool turns 50

Theater de Purmaryn opened in 1990 and sits at the Waagplein, the historic square at the heart of Purmerend's city centre, surrounded by restaurants and cafés. It is the main performing arts venue in the town and draws around 70,000 visitors a season, putting on more than 200 performances as well as some 50 cultural rental events. The programme is notably broad: musicals, concerts, opera and operette, jazz, percussion, chamber music, dance, theatre, cabaret, stand up comedy, children's shows, music theatre and a literary salon all feature regularly across the year. The building contains two halls. The large hall seats between 520 and 550 people and has a table stage, a modern climate control system and infrared amplification for visitors who use a hearing aid or none at all. The smaller hall holds up to 200 to 220 people and is described as intimate and well suited to chamber scale performances. Both spaces are fully equipped for professional productions and are also used for private and corporate functions. A Grand Café in the foyer serves as a gathering point before and after shows. Purmerend itself lies roughly 20 minutes north of Amsterdam, and De Purmaryn is often compared in scope and technical standard to mid sized city theatres in the capital. The Nationale Reisopera, the Dutch touring opera company, includes it as a regular stop on its circuit, which gives a sense of the level of professional programming the venue sustains. Good acoustics and what visitors frequently note as a personal, unpretentious atmosphere set it apart from larger anonymous concert halls in the region.