Florent Masse, Lewis Center for the Arts

Professor of the Practice, Department of French and Italian; Director, L’Avant-Scène, the French Theater Workshop

Photo by Samer A. Khan / Fotobuddy

About

Florent Masse is Professor of the Practice in the Department of French and Italian and the Director of L’Avant-Scène, the French Theater Workshop. Since 2012, he has served as Artistic Director of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival that he has produced annually in partnership with the Lewis Center for the Arts. He earned a master’s degree in American Literature and Civilization at the University of Lille and trained as an actor and director at Lille National Theater with Daniel Mesguich. Later he pursued his theater studies at Amherst College, Massachusetts, as a Levy-Despas Fellow and teaching assistant in the Department of French (1999-2001). This is when he created the program of L’Avant-Scène, which originally mixes linguistic and dramatic training. At Princeton since 2001, he has developed and enriched L’Avant-Scène’s curricular and co-curricular programs. He has directed more than sixty full-length productions of popular and celebrated plays in the French theatrical canon, including plays by Feydeau, Molière, Racine, Corneille, Claudel, Marivaux, Musset, Ionesco, Duras, Lagarce, Mouawad, Pommerat, Reza, Rambert, and NDiaye. He has initiated several enrichment programs abroad for his students and has brought to Princeton a list of prominent French theater artists to perform, direct master classes or teach for a semester. In January 2017, he was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay for his attachment to French culture and his action in favor of its promotion in the United States.

This academic year, Florent Masse will direct Méphisto Rhapsodie by Samuel Gallet, Les fausses confidences by Marivaux, Fantasio by Musset, Soeurs by Pascal Rambert, and an abridged version of Le Favori by Madame de Villedieu. In the early fall of 2021, Florent Masse will produce the tenth annual edition of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival in partnership with the Lewis Center for the Arts. This edition of the festival will consist of HD screenings of recent works by renowned French artists including Dorothée Munyaneza, Tania de Montaigne, Marion Siéfert, David Geselson, Gisèle Vienne, and Pascal Rambert, among others.