Olivier Py has been appointed to the artistic direction of the Théâtre du Châtelet, announced the town hall of Paris, Wednesday February 1, confirming information from Figaro. The former director of the Festival d’Avignon will have the mission of replacing the current co-directors, Ruth Mackenzie and Thomas Lauriot dit Prévost. The appointment of a “huge artist, hailed all over the world” is “a sure promise of audacity, joy, surprises and impertinence”, reacted in a tweet the socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo.
The prestigious Parisian theater had announced, at the end of August 2020, the departure of its artistic director, the Briton Ruth Mackenzie, following an audit which brought to light “managerial and financial problems”, according to a source familiar with the matter. . The general manager, Thomas Lauriot, remained in his post until July 2022. The Paris City Hall then launched a call for applications, specifying that it was an international call.
In addition to restoring a strong artistic identity to this flagship of the City of Paris, Olivier Py will have to take up the challenge of cleaning up finances, the deficit amounting to between 4 and 6 million euros, according to sources. The Châtelet receives 15 million euros from the City and generates 10 million in own revenue.
At the head of the Festival d’Avignon for ten years
At the same time playwright, director of theater texts but also of about thirty operas, actor, singer, author of novels and director of films on occasion, Olivier Py was at the head of the Festival d’Avignon from 2014 to 2022.
Born in 1965 into a middle-class family in Grasse, in the Alpes-Maritimes, he entered the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in 1987, then studied theology for two years. In 1998, he took the helm of the National Dramatic Center of Orléans and created remarkable plays there, such as The Joyful Apocalypse or Requiem for Srebrenica.
In 2007, he was appointed director of the Théâtre national de l’Odéon. But, in 2011, the Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, did not renew his mandate, despite a good record, and appointed Luc Bondy to succeed him.
As a consolation prize, Frédéric Mitterrand appointed him to Avignon, where Py had already been a candidate in 2007. In September 2013, he took over the management of the festival. The dream of a lifetime for this great lover of popular theatre.
The outcome of the nomination process is not to the taste of environmentalists, demanding allies of Anne Hidalgo, and in particular of the elected representative of their group Alice Coffin. “The choice to appoint Olivier Py at the head of the Théâtre du Châtelet is as much arbitrary as the very particular sexism of the cultural world and the political world”, denounced on Twitter the one who is also a member of the board of directors of this theater.
The selection committee, of which she was a member, had selected “two women with excellent records” – Valérie Chevalier and Sandrina Martins – “but it was Olivier Py who was fished out, to the detriment of records deemed better”, says the activist feminist, denouncing a “scandal”.
