Esther Duysker

Esther Duysker (1985) is scenarist, toneelschrijver en hoorspelschrijver. Voor welk medium zij ook schrijft, altijd worden haar stukken gekenmerkt door vaart, humor en een heldere poëzie. 

In 2022 werkte Duysker bij Frascati Producties aan de tekst voor Sea of Silence van regisseur Floor Houwink ten Cate. Een filmisch familie-epos over een cyclus van mentaal en fysiek geweld waarin het perspectief op dader- en slachtofferschap telkens kantelt.

Biography

Esther Duysker (1985) is a screenwriter, playwright and author of audio plays. No matter the medium she is writing for, her work is always characterised by pace, humour and clear poetry.

Duysker studied Writing for Performance at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. Her debut film Dag was selected for the Golden Calf Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2011. She translated and adapted A Raisin in the Sun by American Lorraine Hansberry, which won the Amsterdam Kunstprijs arts award 2016 for Well Made Productions. She recently wrote and realised De Blackout van '77 (an Orkater production) with her collective Sir Duke at the Oerol festival 2017 and gained recognition for her reinterpretation and adaptation of Othello (Het Nationale Theater, 2018).

Duysker previously adapted H.H. Monkau’s novel De Kleurling as an audio play and she has also written for BNN radio. She created the mono-drama Fin in 2014. She then wrote Aan Niets Overleden for Raymi Sambo and others, collaborated on the children’s book TROBI by Brian Elstak and her debut feature film Vliegende Vissen Verdrinken Niet is set to première in 2020. Another two parts of the Raisin Cycle will follow the award-winning A Raisin in the Sun, namely Beneatha’s Place (Kwame Kwei-Armah, 2018) and Clybourne Park (Bruce Norris, 2019).

In 2019, Duysker worked for Frascati Producties (with ITA) on a play in response to the abovementioned Raisin Cycle. This play tells a story about the old Afro-American man Travis from A Raisin in the Sun and the traces left by the legacy of a colonial history in him and his descendants. Through him we meet Lora, a young black woman in the Low Countries. How is her identity influenced by history and how do she and her grandfather define their roles today? A personal story clashes with the Dutch Dream.

In 2022, Duysker works for Frascati Producties on Sea of Silence by Frascati-maker Floor Houwink ten Cate.

Producties