Romana Vrede (1972, Paramaribo) has been very open about this for a few years now: she is not just an actress, writer and theatre maker. She is first and foremost an activist. Her social engagement, careful consideration, unrestrained imagination and enormous sense of theatrics are her tools. She makes theatre performances and art because she wants to bring about change. Once she gets her teeth stuck into an idea, she won’t let go.

In 2016 she made a theatre performance in close collaboration with Club Gewalt called: Who’s Afraid of Charlie Stevens? It is about her mentally disabled and autistic son. In 2019 she made a documentary Dit is de leven (This is the life) about five families with a child with autism. Her book De Nobele Autist was published in 2020 about her relationship with her son.  

In 2020 she started working on the project De Tijd Zal Ons Leren (Time will teach us), telling stories that have nearly been forgotten or have been kept hidden about resistance fighters during our colonial times. In a series of portraits, she presents the stories of the lives of nearly 100 heroes: black and white, in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Europe. 

It was her debut for Theater Rotterdam in the same year, as director of the popular theatre performance The Story of Travis. This is a family epic that she worked on with choreographer Alida Dors and author Esther Duysker. The press called this a ‘dream debut’ by Vrede.

In addition to theatre, she also works in film and television, playing roles in productions including Santos, Nemesis, Moordvrouw, De Eetclub, Hiernamaals and I Don't Wanna Dance, for which she received a Gouden Kalf nomination in 2021.

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