Florent Masse

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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 eighty 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. In 2026, Masse was promoted by the French Ministry of Culture to the grade of Officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

This academic year 2025-26, Masse will direct Mon pays de terre rouge by Nicolas Girard-Michelotti, Britannicus by Racine, and Juste la fin du monde by Lagarce. In the fall of 2025, Florent Masse will produce the fourteenth annual edition of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival in partnership with the Lewis Center for the Arts, Villa Albertine, Festival d'Avignon and Festival d'Automne in Paris. This edition of the festival will bring to campus Wajdi Mouawad, Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Marion Siéfert, Mariano Pensotti, Micha Lescot, and Stanislas Roquette. This fourteenth edition of Seuls en Scène will partner with the theatrical editions Actes Sud-Papiers and celebrate Actes Sud-Papiers' fortieth anniversary with the visit of Caroline Guiela Nguyen and Wajdi Mouawad. In the spring of 2026, L'Avant-Scène will bring to campus French director Stéphane Braunschweig and inaugurate a new collaboration with the theater school of Théâtre National de Strasbourg, welcoming its third-year students in directing and dramaturgy.

Florent Masse Named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres | Department of French and Italian, Princeton University

Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival

Seuls en Scène Festival 2020: The Show Must Go On | Howlround, January 5, 2021

Podcast: Florent Masse Discusses Race in French Theater for France Inter Radio | Radio France, November 5, 2022

French theater troupe L’Avant-Scène marks 20th anniversary with shows, guest speakers | Princeton University news, April 18, 2024

“As Southern France Swelters, the Avignon Festival Tries to Adapt” | New York Times, July 2025

Florent Masse promoted to Officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres | Princeton’s Office of the Dean of the Faculty, April 2026