Playwright
Wessel de Vries (Leeuwarden, 1994) is a Dutch-Frisian playwright. He studied History at the University of Amsterdam and Writing for Performance at the School of Arts Utrecht. Since 2017 he wrote several plays for the Frisian theatre company Tryater such as the camping ground performance Part Time Paradise (2019), and Underwater (2022) about the melting tradition of ice skating in Friesland. Plays by Wessel are fanciful and humorous, poetic and banal at the same time, sometimes based on historical events but always with a present day importance.
Next to his work for Tryater Wessel is working for several Dutch theatre company’s. For Theatergroep De Jonge Honden from Zwolle he wrote a book adaptation of the famous Dutch novel Winter in Wartime (2020) and The Spaghetti Riot (2021) about Italian guest workers coming to the Netherlands in the 1960s. For TG Goed Gezelschap from Amsterdam Wessel wrote Pianotunes (2022) about art theft during World War II.
When not writing plays Wessel is directing and performing himself like in Dining with Dictators (2022) with Theatergroep De Jonge Honden. He also writes movie screenplays like Three people find a car (2015) and works as a teacher and writing coach at (for example) NHL Stenden University, Meeuw Jonge Theatermakers and Schrijversvakschool Amsterdam.
