Save the moment : A Conversation with Nicolas Bouchaud

Join us for “Save the moment : A Conversation with Nicolas Bouchaud”. Visiting Belknap Fellow in the Humanities Council and Department of French and Italian, Nicolas Bouchaud will be in conversation with Florent Masse, Director of L’Avant-Scène. Renowned French actor Nicolas Bouchaud will share his thoughts on the craft of acting ; thoughts that he recently gathered in his book ‘Sauver le moment’ published by Actes-Sud Papiers. What happens when you are on stage ? When you act? When you prepare for it? When you dream about it ? When a great desire leads you to it? Nicolas Bouchaud, one of France’s most respected and renowned stage actors, has an impressive thirty-year career in Théâtre public. From the very beginning of his career, Bouchaud has been committed to work entirely in the network of non-commercial/subsidized theaters. He has been one of its most fervent defenders and celebrated representants. He started his career in the group of the late director Didier Georges-Gabily, and later joined the troupe of French actor Jean-François Sivader, his closest collaborator to date. Across three decades, Nicolas Bouchaud has graced the stages of premier theaters and festivals in France. He has regularly performed at Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe, Ateliers Berthier, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre National de Bretagne, and Théâtre National Populaire, developing an exceptional knowledge of contemporary French theater: of its inner workings, challenges, and artistic directions. He has performed the greatest roles of the repertory such as Alceste in Le Misanthrope, Dom Juan, King Lear, Count Almaviva in Le Mariage de Figaro, Mésa in Partage de Midi by Claudel, Galilée in La Vie de Galilée by Brecht, or Petypon in La Dame de chez Maxim by Feydeau. During the 2022-2023 season, he was Iago in Jean-François Sivadier’s Othello at Théâtre de l’Odéon, and he played in Dostoyevsky’s Les Frères Karamazov staged by Sylvain Creuzevault for Festival d’Automne in Paris.

Free and Open to the public – In French