Theatres
Most theatres have a wide range of works on offer. The largest theatres, with large (>500 seats) and medium-sized (200-500 seats) auditoriums, offer productions which attract great public interest throughout the whole region. In the smaller theatres, known as black box (vlakke vloer) theatres, there is more room for experimentation. Productions by theatre courses are often performed here, and young theatre makers may get the chance to make workshop productions here.

In big cities where there are lots of theatres, some smaller venues have specialized in a specific theatre segment. For instance De Kleine Komedie in Amsterdam offers mainly cabaret, and production house Het Veem Theater is also a stage for mime productions.

Then there are the so-called 'open-end theatres'. These are usually large facilities where the same production can be seen daily for a long period of time. These include the Circustheater in Scheveningen and the Beatrixtheater in Utrecht.

Festivals
There are a lot of festivals where theatre plays an important role. Some of the Dutch festivals on offer include:

• Theaterfestival Boulevard (’s Hertogenbosch); multidisciplinary and international summer festival.
• Cement Festival (Maastricht, southern Netherlands); offers beginning theatre makers a venue.
• Crossing Border (Den Haag); festival for the spoken word and music, with international artists.
• Festival a/d Werf (Utrecht); Festival a/d Werf will merge with the Springdance festival in 2013. It is a festival for more experimental theatre.
• Holland Festival (Amsterdam); prestigious festival with many international top names.
• IT's Festival, Amsterdam; festival for dance and theatre school students from around the world.
• Karavaan (various locations, northern Netherlands); travelling summerfestival with music dance and theatre productions for all age groups on special locations.
• Lowlands (Biddinghuizen); pop festival with theatre programming.
• Noorderzon (Groningen); the largest theatre crossover festival in the north.
• Oerol (Terschelling); open air festival for theatre makers, musicians, visual artists from the Netherlands and abroad.
• Over het IJ (Amsterdam); summer festival in an extraordinary location.
• De Parade (Dutch urban centres); travelling festival in a carnival-like setting.

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