Finding a New Theater Audience Away from France’s Cities


It started when an actor’s grandmother, Lazare Kherson-Macarel, let the organizers take over her backyard. After her death in 2012, a crowdfunding campaign raised 70,000 euros, about $82,000 to keep the festival running on her property, and local officials chose to buy it and rent it to the community for free.

The festival’s audience continued to grow and attracted around 10,000 visitors before the pandemic in 2019. He reached a different milestone last month when one of his six-hour Molière trilogy “Sky, Night and Party” appeared at the Avignon Festival, the most prestigious event in French theatre. The three plays will alternate this month in Fontaine-Guérin.

The theater establishment may be waking up to the vibrancy of rural festivals, but it still has a long way to go, Federation members say. Economically, festivals remain fragile, especially during the pandemic, and they often fall outside of local and regional funding criteria. “Performances in rural settings are not considered ‘real’ performances because they don’t take place in specific venues,” Pauline Bolcatto, a member of the Nouveau Théâtre Populaire and one of the federation’s architects, said in a telephone interview.

Bolcatto said this summer, federation members exchanged tips and information and discussed how best to implement France’s new health card, a government policy that requires businesses and event organizers to check proof of vaccine or a negative coronavirus test before bosses accept it.

The noise produced by daily outdoor performances was not to everyone’s taste in quiet rural areas. In 2019 the Nouveau Théâtre Populaire had to fight a lawsuit started by a neighbor; Decisions so far have been in favor of the group. Roi du Coeur also faced complaints and found a compromise: The festival will continue in its current form until its tenth edition in 2023, after which it will be moved to an as yet undecided location.



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