Arthur Nauzyciel, Theater director
Arthur Nauzyciel is an actor and stage director. Prior to his appointment in 2017 as director of the TNB (Théâtre National de Bretagne), he led the CDN in Orleans (2007 to 2016).
He studied plastic arts and cinema before training at the Théâtre National de Chaillot under the leadership of Antoine Vitez at the time (1987). Arthur Nauzyciel began his acting career under the direction of Jean-Marie Villégier, Alain Françon, Éric Vigner, and Tsai Ming Liang. He started his directing career at the CDDB–Théâtre in Lorient, staging Le Malade imaginaire ou Le Silence de Molière after Molière and Giovanni Macchia (1999). He directed Samuel Beckett’s Oh Les Beaux Jours (2003), staged at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris and in Buenos Aires. Then followed various productions in France: at the Comédie-Française in Paris, Thomas Bernhard’s Place de Héros which on the occasion entered the repertory (2004); for the Avignon Festival (2008), Kaj Munk’s Ordet (La Parole); again for the Avignon Festival (2011) Jan Karski (Mon nom est une fiction), adapted from the novel by Yannick Haenel, recipient of the Georges-Lerminier Prize awarded by the Syndicat de la critique (Association of Art Critics); Knut Hamsun’s Faim (2011) ; Chekov’s La Mouette/The Seagull, presented in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) in Avignon for Avignon Festival (2012); Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish (2013) in collaboration with Étienne Daho. In 2015 he staged Jean Genet’s Splendid’s with a troupe of American performers and the voice of Jeanne Moreau.
He has worked in the USA on many occasions. Among his American productions are: two plays by B-M Koltès: Black Battles with Dogs (2001) and Roberto Zucco (2004), staged in Atlanta; Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party (2007) and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (2008) for the American Reportory Theater (A.R.T.) in Boston. His various foreign productions have been reprised in France and in different international festivals: in Dublin, Beckett’s L’Image (2006), with Damien Jalet and Anne Brochet, Lou Doillon (and later Julie Moulier); at the National Theater of Island, Marie Darrieussecq’s Le Musée de la mer (2009); at the National Theater of Norway Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party (2012); at the Mini teater in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Les Larmes amères de Petra von Kant/The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (2015); and at the National Theater Company of Korea (NTCK), Kim Young-ha’s The Empire of Light (2016).
He also stages works for the opera and dance. In 2011 he staged Red Waters, an opera by the duo Lady & Bird (Keren Ann and Barði Jóhannsson); in 2018 he staged Alexander Zemlinsky’s Une tragédie florentine/A Florentine Tragedy at the Royaumont Abbey outside Paris, followed in the same year by Le Papillon noir, an opera composed by Yann Robin and Yannick Haenel, for the festival Les Musiques in Marseille. In collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, he co-created Play (2010) for the dancer Shantala Shivalingappa. He works regularly with different artists and ensembles, including Miroslaw Balka, Matt Elliott, Christian Fennesz, Damien Jalet, Valérie Mréjen, Pierre-Alain Giraud, José Lévy, Gaspard Yurkievich, Erna Ómarsdóttir, the Ensemble Organum, Sjón, and Winter Family.
During his inaugural season as the director of the TNB, Arthur Nauzyciel presented a selection of his most emblematic productions to the event-going public of Rennes: Julius Caesar, The Empire of Light and Jan Karski (Mon nom est une fiction). In the fall of 2018, he presented his first production from his residency at the TNB: La Dame aux camélias/Camille, based on the novel and play by Alexandre Dumas fils. Also for the 2018 season he collaborated with the resident choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Colin Dunne for the creation of Session (2019). As an actor, Arthur Nauzyciel performed in two texts under the direction of Pascal Rambert: De mes propres mains and L’Art du théâtre, both presented at the TNB in March 2019.
This season he will renew his artistic collaboration with Pascal Rambert, working on 2 exceptional creations: Mes frères/Brothers, for which he is the stage director and a performer; and Architecture, in which he performs, and which will be staged in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des papes and open the 2019 Avignon Festival, before being reprised at the TNB to open the new season in Rennes.