Quebec youth theatre companies find European stages at Avignon Festival
Three Quebec theatre troupes are showing new work in Avignon this summer, capitalizing on the festival's reputation as a distribution hub for francophone theatre.
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For francophone theatre professionals, the Festival d'Avignon is not just a showcase — it is the distribution hub that determines which productions tour France and across Europe. Quebec companies have discovered this, and this summer three are staking their claim on French stages.
Le Gros Orteil, a circus-theatre company, is presenting Le bibliothécaire for the third time at Avignon. The single-performer show blends clownish play with physical performance for audiences aged 5 to 12. "Each time we go, there are at least a hundred distributors who come see our spectacle," says Marie-Hélène D'Amours, the company's director. Her two previous Avignon runs resulted in roughly a hundred performances across France. "Avignon is the keystone of a French tour," she explains. "More than Quebecers, the French never buy a show without seeing it first."
Théâtre Bluff, one of Quebec's largest youth theatre companies, is also in Avignon this month — for the tenth consecutive year. Codirector Joachim Tanguay notes the company performs when it can, but attends regardless, simply to network with French theatre professionals and catch productions. "In theatre, everything gets booked two or three years in advance," he says. This year, Bluff is presenting a work-in-progress to producers, hoping for future French dates.
French theatre professionals acknowledge a tilt in Quebec's favour when it comes to young audiences. "In France, there's a certain disdain for youth theatre," says Olivier Letellier, artistic director of the Tréteaux de France, a public theatre company specializing in young-audience work. "Young people don't vote and have no money to spend, so cultural policy has long left them aside." Quebec, by contrast, has nurtured young-audience theatre for decades. "We regularly work with Quebec companies, and they have an excellent reputation," says Gregory Vandaël, director of Le Grand Bleu in Lille, one of France's largest youth theatres. "Quebecers have always been precursors in youth theatre — inventive contemporary writing and imaginative staging."
