Jacques Copeau

Who was Jacques Copeau?

Jacques Copeau was an influential French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist born in Paris. Before he founded his famous Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theatre reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works and helped found the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1909, along with writer friends, such as André Gide and Jean Schlumberger. He eventually organized a theatre school attached to his theatre and thus influenced the development of theatre through the training of the actor. Twentieth century French theatre is marked by Copeau's outlook. According to Albert Camus, "in the history of the French theatre, there are two periods: before Copeau and after Copeau."