Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, Department of French and Italian, and L’Avant-Scène will present the 15th edition of the Seuls en Scène French Theater Festival from Sept. 18 to 26 at venues across the university’s campus and downtown Princeton.
Most events will be in French, some with English supertitles or subtitles. All events are free and open to the public, although tickets are required for performances.
Seuls en Scène ushers in the 26th season of L’Avant-Scène, a French theater troupe of Princeton students. It also celebrates professional theatrical achievements from the past year. Many of the invited artists are prominent contributors to contemporary theater in France.
The festival is organized by Florent Masse, professor of the practice in the Department of French and Italian and artistic director of L’Avant-Scène, and is presented in collaboration with the Festival d’Avignon and the Comédie-Française.
Masse said this year’s festival continues a new collaboration with the Festival d’Avignon and brings a recent production from that festival to Princeton. He said the event has grown since its inception in 2012 and emphasized the importance of bringing international theater artists to students and local audiences.
The festival opens Friday and Saturday, Sept. 18 and 19, at 8 p.m. with “Barbara (par Barbara)” by Marie-Sophie Ferdane and Emmanuel Noblet.
The musical performance is conceived as a contemporary radio broadcast, blending interviews, archival material and previously unseen love letters from French singer Barbara, who lived from 1930 to 1997. Set in a studio space with an all-white floor and walls, the production has no physical representation of the singer, although her voice and words are central to the performance. Ferdane, a celebrated French stage actress, makes her Seuls en Scène debut. The production is in French, is recommended for ages 12 and older and will be presented in the Wallace Theater.
On Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19 and 20, at 5 p.m., the festival presents “Nom,” Hugues Jourdain and Victoria Quesnel’s adaptation of Constance Debré’s novel.
The work follows Debré’s pursuit of personal freedom and her questioning of family, marriage, career and identity. On a bare stage, Quesnel performs the text as an intense stream of thought. Debré left a career as a lawyer to become a writer and is the author of the trilogy “Playboy,” “Love Me Tender” and “No Name.” The production marks the first theatrical adaptation of one of Debré’s texts. It will be performed in French in the Hearst Dance Theater and is recommended for ages 15 and older.
The U.S. premiere of “De la Comédie-Française,” a film by Martin Darondeau and Bertrand Usclat, will be screened Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 4 p.m. at the Princeton Garden Theatre.
The film follows a nerve-racking opening night for Nina, who is directing “Macbeth” with members of her troupe as everything begins to go wrong before the curtain rises. The cast includes members of the Comédie-Française, including Guillaume Gallienne, Benjamin Lavernhe, Marina Hands, Laurent Stocker, Julien Frison, Séphora Pondi, Christian Hecq, Florence Viala, Françoise Gillard, Serge Bagdassarian, Adeline d’Hermy and Danièle Lebrun.
The 72-minute film will be shown in French with English subtitles. The screening will be followed by a Q&A in French with Gillard, who appears in the film and also performs in “L’Événement” during the festival.
“L’Événement,” based on the work by 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Annie Ernaux, will be performed Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 8 p.m. in the Wallace Theater.
The play recounts three months in Ernaux’s life between October 1963 and January 1964, from discovering she was pregnant through the days following her abortion. The work examines the prejudices, moral codes and violence of a society shaped by male domination. The production will be performed in French with English supertitles, is recommended for ages 18 and older and marks a new partnership with the Comédie-Française. After Princeton, the production is scheduled to tour North America.
On Thursday, Sept. 24, at 4:30 p.m., the festival presents “L’Aube des questions – Festival d’Avignon 2026,” a conversation with Aurélie Charon, Emma Prat and Oksana Leuta.
The three took part in an event at this year’s Festival d’Avignon celebrating the festival’s 80th anniversary. The Princeton conversation will explore the future of the Festival d’Avignon and will also include Léo Cohen-Paperman, who presented four productions at the festival’s fringe events. The program will be in French and will take place in East Pyne 010.
“Génération Mitterrand – Huit rois (nos présidents), Episode 2” by Cohen-Paperman and Émilien Diard-Detoeuf will be presented Friday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 26, at 5 p.m. in Whitman College’s Class of 1970 Theater.
The play follows Marie-France, a Paris journalist; Luc, a teacher in Vénissieux; and Michel, a factory worker in Belfort. All three were 18 during the events of May 1968 and voted for François Mitterrand in 1981. By 2022, however, they supported three different presidential candidates.
The three characters take turns playing “their” president as the play examines how French society and political identities have changed. The production is performed in French with English supertitles and is recommended for ages 12 and older.
The Radio Live team returns to Princeton for the fourth time with “Vivantes,” presented Friday and Saturday, Sept. 25 and 26, at 8 p.m. in the Wallace Theater.
Conceived by Aurélie Charon and Amélie Bonnin, the production combines radio and theater and features the stories of Oksana Leuta of Ukraine, Karam Al Kafri of Syria and Ines Tanovi of Bosnia. Through personal accounts, filmed footage and live drawing, the three discuss experiences shaped by war and exile.
The production explores resilience, migration and the transmission of experience between generations. It is performed in English and is recommended for ages 12 and older.
The festival concludes Saturday, Sept. 26, at 2:30 p.m. with “Losing Your Bag,” a work in progress by playwright Pascal Rambert created with actress Pauline Chalamet.
The one-woman piece follows a young woman with a master’s degree who is temporarily working as a window cleaner. During the performance, she expresses anger over social inequality and loneliness in a world divided between people who succeed and people who do not.
The performance will take place in Blair Arch. It is in English and recommended for ages 15 and older.
Tickets are free but required for all performances and the film screening. The Sept. 24 conversation is free and does not require a ticket.
The festival also marks the launch of a new partnership between Seuls en Scène and the Comédie-Française, France’s national theater, founded in 1680.
L’Avant-Scène will continue its 2026-27 season after the festival with productions including Joël Pommerat’s “Contes et légendes,” Racine’s “Phèdre” and Bernard-Marie Koltès’ “Le retour au désert.”
Masse has directed nearly 80 full-length productions of French theater since arriving at Princeton in 2001. In 2017, he was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2026 he was promoted to Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters.
The festival is presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts, the Department of French and Italian and L’Avant-Scène, with support from several Princeton University programs and international partners, including the Festival d’Avignon, Comédie-Française, Cultural Services of the French Embassy – Villa Albertine, Albertine Foundation and Institut français.
The festival runs Friday, Sept. 18, through Saturday, Sept. 26.
