Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell
The Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell is an 800-seat Parisian theater at 38, boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle in the 10th arrondissement . The theater has two additional smaller halls: the Studio Marie Bell (90 seats) and the Petit Gymnase (160 seats). The theater is a listed building.
history
Opened on December 23, 1820 by Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, the theater served the students of the Paris Conservatory as a venue and initially only performed one-act plays or pieces reduced to one act.
Poirson extended his license to two acts, then to three, and signed an exclusive deal with the famous playwright Eugène Scribe . The theater had gas lighting since 1823 and, at the grace of Maria Karolina of Naples-Sicily (1798–1870), had been able to call itself Théâtre de Madame since 1824 .
In June 1830 the theater was closed, renovated and reopened after the July Revolution under the name Gymnase Dramatique .
In 1844 Adolphe Lemoine took over the theater management. In order to attract a larger audience, he devoted himself to the stirring piece and melodrama . Among the listed authors were Honoré de Balzac , Émile Augier , George Sand , Edmond About , Victorien Sardou , Octave Feuillet , Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy , Alexandre Dumas the Elder and Alexandre Dumas the Younger .
In 1926 the writer Henry Bernstein became director and performed his plays there: Samson, La Rafaie, La Galerie des Glaces, Mélo, Le Bonheur and again Le Messager .
Since 1939 the Gymnase has been the venue for the works of Marcel Pagnol , Jean Cocteau , Sacha Guitry , Félicien Marceau and Jean Genet . The tragedy and later namesake of the stage, Marie Bell , took over the management in 1962; especially her interpretation of Racine's Phèdre became famous there. She ran the theater until her death on August 14, 1985.
Her successor was Jacques Bertin.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 52 ′ 15 ″ N , 2 ° 20 ′ 56 ″ E