Jeanne Candel

After studying literature, Jeanne Candel joined the Centre National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique (CNSAD) where she worked with Andrzej Seweryn, Joël Jouanneau, Muriel Mayette, Philippe Adrien, Mario Gonzalès, and Arpàd Schilling. From 2006 to 2011, she worked regularly with Arpàd Schulling, with whom she created four shows.

In 2009, she founded the company la vie brève and staged the works: “Robert Plankett” (Artdanthé, 2010); “Le Crocodile trompeur / Didon et Enée”, co-directed with Samuel Achache and adapted from Purcell’s opera and other sources (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, 2013); “Le Goût du faux et autres chansons” (Festival d’Automne, 2014); “Orfeo”, co-directed with Samuel Achache and adapted from Monteverdi (Comédie de Valence, January 2017); “Demi-Véronique”, a theatrical ballet inspired by Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, co-created and performed with Caroline Darchen and Lionel Dray (Comédie de Valence, February 2017); and “Tarquin”, a lyrical drama composed by Florent Hubert to a libretto by Aram Kebabijan (Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil – CDN, September 2019). At the Théâtre de l’Aquarium, which she co-directs, she premiered “BAÙBO – the art of not being dead”, adapted from Buxtehude, Musil, Schütz, and other sources (January 2023), followed by “Fusées”, a production for audiences aged six and above (September 2024).

In February 2016, Candel was invited to stage “Brùndibar” by Hans Krása at the Opéra de Lyon. During the COVID-19 health crisis, she staged Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Hippolyte et Aricie”, conducted by Raphaël Pichon with Ensemble Pygmalion (Opéra Comique, November 2020), followed by Benjamin Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia”, conducted by Léo Warynski (Opéra de Paris / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, May 2021). In 2022, she conceived and performed, with Lionel Gonzalez and Thibault Perriard, “La Nuit sera blanche”, based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “A Gentle Creature”, in a production directed by Lionel González (Théâtre Gérard Philipe, Saint-Denis).

She has a passion for site-specific creations, in which the creative drive relies on extracting tales and unconscious stories embedded in preexisting places. These include: “Nous brûlons, une histoire cubiste”, a promenade performance through the village of Villeréal (July 2010); “Some Kind of Monster”, staged on a tennis court (Villeréal, 2012); “Dieu et sa maman”, created and performed with Lionel Dray in a deconsecrated church in Valence filled with canoes (Festival Ambivalence(s), May 2015); and “TRAP”, a performance unfolding in the lower level of the Comédie de Valence and the city’s departmental archives (May 2017).

Since July 2019, she manages alongside Marion Bois and Elaine Meric the Théâtre de l’Aquarium, in Paris’ Cartoucherie, making it a home for creation dedicated to the intertwining of music and theater.

Jeanne Candel is an Onassis AiR Fellow for 2025-26 in the framework of Prospero Platform, co-funded by the European Union.