Special Days ・ Comédie-Française

How did they perform plays at the Comédie-Française one or several hundred years ago?

Au programme, le 22 juin 1777
Le Siège de Calais, de Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy
L’Anglais à Bordeaux, de Charles-Simon Favart

Only a few decades ago, every evening featured two plays, a short one –or curtain raiser– before the main event. The cycle of Special Days invites audiences to step into the Repertoire time machine and take a close look at the practices of the spectator of the past: how did people get to the theatre? What time did they arrive? How big was the audience? What ways did they pay attention to plays in different historical contexts? What kinds of careers were enjoyed by plays performed as openers and that are never presented today? Thanks to the daily registers kept since 1680, everything that has happened in the House of Molière since its creation has been recorded in writing. It is to discover this precious record that the public is being invited today to attend this cycle of Special Days. There will be readings by the actors of the Troupe, presentations of the authors and the actors who performed their texts, and an analysis of the context of the performance: each event, run by a Comédien-Français and coordinated by Agathe Sanjuan, the Comédie-Française’s curator-archivist, is an opportunity to dive into a literary heritage that comprises close to three thousand plays.