The Théâtre de l'Athénée is a theatre at 7 rue Boudreau, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Renovated in 1996 and classified a historical monument, the Athénée inherits an artistic tradition marked by the figure of Louis Jouvet who directed the theatre from 1934 to 1951. During the period when he was director, it became known as the Athenée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet.
History
The current Théâtre de l'Athénée was constructed from a foyer, which was converted into an intimate theatre in 1893 by the architect Stanislas Loison with further modifications carried out by the architect Paul Fouquiau in 1894. It opened on 31 December 1894 under the name Théâtre de la Comédie-Parisienne. Oscar Wilde's play Salomé was premiered there on 11 February 1896 in a staging by Lugné-Poe's theatre group, the Théâtre de l'Œuvre. The location had become rather unsafe, as demolition work on the Éden-Théâtre was in progress all around it. The police considered banning the performances due to the risk of fire or accident. Their concerns were somewhat reduced by the construction of a temporary 12-meter-long passageway from the theatre to the rue Boudreau. Later that year the construction work on the site of the former Éden theatre was finally completed by Fouquiau, and the theatre was reconstituted as the Athénée-Comique, "from the name of a notoriously frivolous, perhaps immoral, establishment nearby that had to close ten years earlier" . The theatre was renamed Athénée in 1899. For the first 40 years it was the home of vaudevilles, comedies, and melodramas. In 1934 Louis Jouvet took control of the theatre and made it famous. He continued to produce and perform there, until his death in 1951. Among the premieres under Jouvet were several plays by Jean Giraudoux, including Tessa, La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu, Supplément au voyage de Cook, Electre, L'impromptu de Paris, Ondine, and La folle de Chaillot, as well as Marcel Achard's Le corsaire and Jean Genet's Les bonnes. One of Jouvet's most successful revivals was Molière's L'école des femmes, in which Jouvet performed the role of Arnolphe. Pierre Renoir, who had been an actor in Jouvet's troupe, was artistic director, briefly, from 1951 until his death the following year. In the 2000s the Théâtre Athénée presented revivals of operetta and musical comedy, among which the Brigands company produced Le docteur Ox, Ta Bouche, Toi c'est moi and Arsène Lupin Banquier.
