Events

As part of Seuls en Scène’s new partnership with Festival d’Avignon, a conversation with former Festival d’Avignon Director Hortense Archambault and current Director Tiago Rodrigues kicks off the festival. They will be joined by Mohamed Bouabdallah, the Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of France in the United States. Florent Masse, the director of L’Avant-Scène and artistic director of Seuls en Scène, will moderate the conversation.

The conversation will be in French. Duration: 80 minutes.

About the Guests

Hortense Archambault stands outdoors and smiles and gazes off in the distance. She has chin-length gray hair and wears an orange sweater.

Photo credit: Laura Stevens // Modds

Hortense Archambault led Festival d’Avignon for ten years from 2003 until 2013. With Vincent Baudriller, her co-director, she helped bring the renowned festival into the 21st century devising bold innovations and upping its international stature. Director of MC93 Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis Bobigny since 2015, Archambault leads their project to take theatre to the people of Seine-Saint-Denis and beyond, focusing on the issue of the commons, their shared cultural resources. At MC93, audiences, artists, teachers, and communities come together to weave a rich tapestry of experiences and outlooks they call La Fabrique d’expériences. Their users form the fabric of their institutional workshops and residencies. Their meet ups are an open invitation to local people and their contributions ensure they remain in step with their environment. This institution is a place for creativity and expression where imagination is the watchword.

Tiago Rodrigues stands and leans against a stone column with his right elbow elevated and hand on his forehead. He smiles and wears a blue shirt and zipper sweater.

Photo credit: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

Portuguese actor Tiago Rodrigues crossed paths with the Belgian company Tg Stan at the age of twenty. There he developed his acting, his writing for the theatre, and his taste for the collective. As an author and director, he founded the company Mundo Perfeito with Magda Bizarro in 2003 before becoming director of the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in Lisbon from 2015 to 2021. Combining true stories and fiction and weaving together the intimate and the political, Tiago Rodrigues’s shows are deeply influenced by the idea of writing with and for the actors, and by his quest for a transformation of our conscience through the tools of theatre. His goal? To bring us together to question our world thanks to the power of the words, of the bodies, and of the imagination of the spectators. He currently serves as director of the Festival d’Avignon, an institution he knows well, having presented several shows here, including Antony and Cleopatra in 2015, Sopro in 2017, The Cherry Orchard in 2021, By heart and Dans la mesure de l’impossible in 2023, and Hécube pas Hécube in 2024.

Tickets & Details

The conversation is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

View French Theater Festival info

Directions

Get directions to Room 010, East Pyne Hall

Accessibility

symbol for wheelchair accessibilityEast Pyne 010 is an accessible venue. The conversation will be in French with no subtitles.

Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

 

 

Presented By

  • Lewis Center for the Arts
  • L’Avant-Scène

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