Seuls en Scène 2025 presents Réparer la parole — Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Actes Sud-Papiers

In 2025, Actes Sud-Papiers celebrates forty years of theatrical editions. The collection boasts more 1,200 titles composed of plays, essays, and books on the performing arts. Events are planned throughout 2025 in various locations including Paris, Sibiu, Tokyo, Shizuoka, and Avignon.

At Princeton, the celebration takes the form of a panel discussion on the theme Réparer la parole (Repair with Words) with renowned playwright-directors Wajdi Mouawad and Caroline Guiela Nguyen, both published at Actes Sud-Papiers. The conversation, moderated by French journalist Laure Adler, will be followed by a reading of excerpts from plays by Mouawad and Nguyen by French actor Jérémie Galiana including Tous des oiseaux, Lacrima and Racine carrée du verbe être. Caroline Guiela Nguyen will also offer a short preview reading of the future pièce commune of Festival d’Avignon Bérénice that she has been invited to create for 2027. The day will culminate with the second performance of Insuline & Magnolia, also published by Actes Sud-Papiers in the collection “Au singulier.” Earlier in the day, Wajdi Mouawad will offer a private masterclass to current and alumni students of L’Avant-Scène and the Program in Theater.

Visit the website of the 40th Anniversary of Actes Sud-Papiers

Admission

The conversation is free and open to the public; no tickets required.

Event Details

The conversation will be in French. Duration: 2 hours, 30 min.

See all shows in 2025 French Theater Festival

Directions

Get directions to East Pyne 010 on the Princeton University campus.

Accessibility

East Pyne is an accessible venue. The conversation will be in French.

Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.

About the Artists

Photo credit: Simon Gosselin

Born in Lebanon in 1968, Wajdi Mouawad fled the country for France between the ages of 10 and 15, before settling in Quebec, where he lived until the 2000s. He has written and directed adaptations of classical and contemporary works as well as his own texts, published by Leméac / Actes Sud. In addition to theatre, he has written children’s stories and two novels: Visage retrouvé (2002) and Anima (2012), which received multiple awards. His works, translated into twenty languages, have been published or performed across five continents.

Alongside awards for specific plays and productions, Mouawad has been repeatedly honored for his entire body of work — named Chevalier of France’s National Order of Arts and Letters (2002), of the Canadian Order (2009), and the National Order of Quebec (2010). He also received the SACD Francophonie Prize in 2004, an honorary doctorate from the École normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines in Lyon, and the Grand Prix du Théâtre from the Académie française in 2009.

A graduate of Canada’s National Theatre School in 1991, he co-founded his first company, Théâtre Ô Parleur, with actress Isabelle Leblanc in 1997. As an actor, he has performed in his own works and under the direction of artists such as Brigitte Haentjens, Dominic Champagne, and Stanislas Nordey. He has also appeared in Jihane Chouaib’s The Dreamed Land, Chloé Mazlo’s feature debut Skies of Lebanon, and more recently, Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet. As a director, Mouawad explores the work of authors such as Shakespeare, Euripides, Wedekind, Chekhov, as well as contemporary voices including Naji Mouawad, Irvine Welsh, Edna Mazia, and Louise Bombardier.

While directing the Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Montreal from 2000 to 2004, he created Incendies, which was later adapted for film by Denis Villeneuve in 2010. From 2007 to 2010, he directed the French Theatre at Canada’s National Arts Centre in Ottawa and was an associate artist at the Avignon Festival in 2009, where he premiered the tetralogy Le Sang des promesses. In 2011, he launched his French company Au Carré de l’Hypoténuse. His first production as director of La Colline – théâtre national, where he was appointed in April 2016, was Tous des oiseaux. Performed more than 150 times in France and abroad, it won the Grand Prize and Best Scenic Design Award from the French Critics Association. He went on to create Notre innocence (2018), Fauves (2019), Mort prématurée d’un chanteur populaire dans la force de l’âge with musician Arthur H (2019), a new version of Littoral (2020), Racine carrée du verbe être (2022), and Journée de noces chez les Cromagnons (2024). At the same time, several earlier productions have continued to tour.

In 2025, Wajdi Mouawad holds the annual chair The Invention of Europe through Languages and Cultures, created in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture, at the Collège de France.

Photo credit: Manuel Braun

Caroline Guiela Nguyen is an author as well as a director for both the stage and the screen. After starting out as a sociology student, she joined TnS drama school and founded her own theatre company in 2009, Les Hommes Approximatifs. Their work focuses on bodies and histories that are often overlooked by the theatre, creating ambitious fictional tales in collaboration with both professional and non-professional actors. Along with her team, she has crafted an aesthetic that influences their productions.

Since 2011, Caroline Guiela Nguyen and her company’s notable works include Se souvenir de Violetta at the Comédie de Valence Theatre, followed by Ses Mains (2012), Le Bal d’Emma (2013), Elle brûle (2013), and Le Chagrin (2015). From 2013 onwards, her shows toured throughout France, performing notably at prestigious theaters and festivals.

From 2015, she collaborated with directors Joël Pommerant and Jean Ruimi on her partnership with Arles’ high-security prison to create performances with a troupe of inmates. In 2020, she shot her first film, Les Engloutis, and she made a radio play for France Culture as part of their ‘Radiodrama’ series, called Le Chagrin (Julie et Vincent).

In 2017 Saigon debuted, a show first presented at the the Ambivalence(s) festival, before transferring to the 71st edition of the Festival of Avignon. In 2021, for the 75th edition of the Avignon Festival, she made FRATERNITÉ, Conte fantastique, performing over 130 times throughout France and Europe. Invited by Berlin’s Schaubühne, she made an original production entitled Kindheitsarchive, a fiction weaving together different adoption stories.

In 2023, she began rehearsals for her next project, Lacrima, that unfolds in three textile workshops—an haute couture fashion house in Paris, a traditional lace-maker in Alençon, and an embroiderer in Mumbai. In the fall of 2023, Nguyen officially took over as Director of the National Theatre of Strasbourg (TnS) and its drama school.

Special Thanks

Claire David, Arnaud Anne-Sylvie Bameule, Françoise Nyssen, Arnaud Antolinos & Laure Adler