SACD - Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques
Entr'Actes
home
playwright database
News from Abroad
Translation Database
Playwrights Corner
In the Spotlight
New Plays in Print
Actes du théâtre Archives
 
 
Actes du théâtre :
newsletter
 
Site Map
 
[ french ]
 
 

International Cultural Projects

 
     
 

LABO/O7 is a professional network devoted to multilingual theater productions for young audiences. It is built on extensive knowledge of the international contemporary youth repertoire in all its diversity, and on the vast creativity of various forms of writing, their scope and musicality on stage. It was created in 2007 in Europe, with support from the SACD, and is open to the world as a popular and exacting ambassador of the theater, a source of all kinds of contemporary playwriting for children and teens.

To achieve its goals, LABO/O7 has focused on 5 elements: promoting contemporary plays selected by its reading committees; translating the plays in both directions in an active and inventive way; writing original projects for the stage driven by the concept of multilingualism; French, European and international cultural initiatives targeting a variety of circles; extensive long-term outreach designed to create a sustainable international network.

Playwrights are a central part of LABO/O7's projects, helping to invent and implement them along with other theater professionals.

The reading committees

Composed of fifteen professionals, the reading committee reads, discusses, selects and circulates recent contemporary plays in the arts and education sectors. The plays may be in French, written by French, francophone and foreign playwrights, or in other languages. The plays selected, known as Briefcases, are circulated among other French and European reading committees for young audiences, in theaters, festivals, and among companies, directors and publishers, both in France and abroad.

In the "Lire et dire le théâtre en famille(s)" mediation project (see article below), the playwrights propose plays for the families to explore based on those selected by LABO/O7's reading committee. Here again, the playwrights are central to the project, relaying the contemporary plays in close contact with the reader-spectators, i.e. within the families.



"Lire et dire du théâtre en famille" (Theater Readings for and with Families) Becomes a Network

" Thirty-five people invited by the LABO/O7 network, the Petits et Grands festival (Nantes) - initiators of the project - and the Théâtre national de Chaillot (Paris) took part in presenting the "Lire et dire du théâtre en famille" initiative. The SACD, a partner of the project, hosted the meeting. "Lire et dire du théâtre en famille" provides a opportunity for playwrights to read contemporary plays for young audiences to families - parents and children - in their living rooms. There are three successive sessions for exploring and reading the plays. The third session is a staged reading in front of an audience composed of relatives and friends invited by the family. Participants in the exercise have included actors from the Théâtre du Phare, the company run by Olivier Letellier, a new associate artist at the Théâtre national de Chaillot. He and his artistic team will also be reading plays to and with parents and children, under the name "La famille qui lit" (Families that Read).

Regarding the other partners involved in the project, the playwrights themselves will meet the families connected to the institutions hosting them. After the previous season's initiatives in Nantes (44), Paris (75), Fumel (47) and Pierrefonds (La Réunion), new meetings between families and playwrights will be offered throughout the season. The Festival d'Avignon, Momix, Méli'môme, Théâtr'enfants and Tarmac have shown interest in the project by taking part in the exchanges, along with the playwrights (Catherine Verlaguet, Claudine Galéa, Estelle Savasta, Penda Diouf, Sylvain Levey, Martin Bellemare and Luc Tartar, the playwright leading the initiative).

One of the participants in the event was Françoise du Chaxel, director of the Éditions Théâtrales collection for young audiences, who attested to the wealth of contemporary plays for young audiences. She stressed the diversity of writing styles, also pointing out that it is only an occasional pursuit for some of the playwrights, such as Hervé Blutsch or Carlos Liscano, published by Editions Théâtrales jeunesse. "Sometimes, during a playwright's life, there are things he has to say to a particular audience." Éditions Théâtrales' ten best-sellers are plays for young audiences, leading her to express gratitude that "in France, we're lucky the theater is not as standardized as in other countries. We're more interested in exposing people to writing than to issues." The director Caroline Girard (Compagnie La Liseuse) then taught the playwrights and actors how to do staged readings with the families. "A blog was recently created to explain the procedure and highlight the phases already completed," explained Sandrine Grataloup, head of international promotion at the SACD and a founding member of LABO/O7. The assembled partners drafted a charter, the objective being to start building a real network to share skills and experiences blending large institutions in the national system and smaller structures around the same purpose." The network is open to all structures (theaters, festivals, companies) interested in developing the project in their area. The initiative, the playwrights involved in the network and the list of plays are available on the website: http://lire-et-dire.tumblr.com/


Cyrille Planson, in Le Piccolo, 0ctober 5, 2015


Contacts
Sandrine Grataloup | sandrine.grataloup@sacd.fr
Cyrille Planson | cyrille.planson@lascene.com

 



Contacts LABO/O7

Sandrine Grataloup | sandrine.grataloup@sacd.fr
Marianne Ségol | mariannesegol@hotmail.com
Karin Serres | karinserres@me.com
 
[ Back ]