FRANCE

by Patrick Honoré - October 27, 2025

Just days after its October 22nd 2025 premiere at Paris's Théâtre Antoine, Benoît Solès's bold French adaptation of Gaston Leroux's Le Fantôme de l'Opéra has already sparked a whirlwind of reactions....

by Patrick Honoré - October 22, 2025

From Cherbourg to Rochefort: completing Demy's dream trilogy, The Young Girls of Rochefort soars on stage in Paris....

by Patrick Honoré - October 19, 2025

The French premiere of Dear Evan Hansen at the Théâtre de la Madeleine on 10 October 2025 marks an accomplished and thoughtful introduction of the Tony Award–winning musical to Parisian audiences....

by Patrick Honoré - October 13, 2025

A Triumphant Return: 'Les Producteurs' Lights Up Théâtre de Paris Once More. Oh, what a delight it is to dive back into the uproarious world of Mel Brooks' The Producers—or as the French so aptly title it, Les Producteurs—at Théâtre de Paris-Salle Réjane, running from September 25 2025 to January 11...

by Patrick Honoré - August 26, 2025

At Brussels’ enchanting Château du Karreveld, Festival Bruxellons! delivers a climatic French-language premiere of Rebecca, a romantic thriller musical that easily surpasses the English-language London production with its breathtaking spectacle, including the audacious use of real fire on stage....

by Wesley Doucette - July 14, 2025

The impulse with Avignon’s Cour d’Honneur is to go big. Since the Festival’s inception in 1947, artists have attempted to match the scale of the 30-meter wall behind them. It’s a gamble, but when it works, it’s mesmerizing. For her concert reEncanto, singer Mayra Andrade instead tamed the Cour d’Hon...

by Wesley Doucette - July 14, 2025

Mette Ingvartsen’s Delirious Night, now in performance at the Festival d’Avignon’s Cour du Lycée St. Joseph, tries historical moments of frenzy, like medieval carnivals, on for size. The cast enters in mostly casual attire and masks. A performer then begins to clap a rhythm. This rhythm is gradually...

by Wesley Doucette - July 14, 2025

Choreographers Selma and Sofiane Ouissi appear only on screen in Laaroussa Quartet, now in performance at the Festival d’Avignon’s La Fabrica. Seated outdoors in Tunisia, the camera lingers on their gestures, offering only fleeting glimpses of their faces as they occasionally enter the frame. ...

by Wesley Doucette - July 14, 2025

This past week, I found myself explaining the concept of “commit to the bit” to a friend in Paris. “But what is the bit?” he asked. If only he had seen Marlene Monteiro Freitas’s Nôt, currently in performance at the Festival d’Avignon’s Cour d’Honneur, he would have encountered an extraordinary case...

by Wesley Doucette - July 14, 2025

The news can inform us. It can also transform pain into ambient noise. This is particularly true in Lebanon, which has endured revolution, a catastrophic explosion in Beirut, and bombardments from Israel. ...