"Thornton Wilder's masterpiece...An immortal tale of small town morality [and]...a classic of soft spoken theater." --The New York Times.

Stanford Drama professor Jean-Marie Apostolidès collaborates with the world-renowned French director Georges Lavaudant to present the Pulitzer Prize-winning American favorite that Edward Albee describes as “…the greatest American play ever written.”

Written and set in the late 1930s when milkmen still came door-to-door each morning, Our Town nonetheless confronts the more timeless human traditions— love, marriage, birth, and death—and asks the questions at the core of human experience: how might we live life with both significance and routine? What makes life significant?

This production is made possible with the generous support of the Consulate General of France in San Francisco, the French American Cultural Exchange, and the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
e General of France in San Francisco and the French American Cultural Exchange.

"WORLD-RENOWNED GEORGES LAVAUDANT DIRECTS OUR TOWN AT STANFORD"
Article By Cynthia Haven || The Stanford Report || November 8, 2011

"Why don't we do something in America?" the famous French director asked Stanford's Jean-Marie Apostolidès over dinner in Paris. So Georges Lavaudant came to Stanford to direct "Our Town." It's been called the greatest American play ever written, but Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-prize-winning Our Town is too often treated like a hoary old chestnut, the staple of high school drama departments.

The renowned French director Georges Lavaudant, in collaboration with Stanford French professor Jean-Marie Apostolidès, will put a new twist on the familiar tale. The Stanford Drama Department's Our Town will be performed at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, through Saturday, Nov. 12, in the Pigott Theater.

"We've never invited a theater director of this stature to produce a show at Stanford," said Apostolidès. This month alone, he said, Lavaudant, most recently director of the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, has engagements at the Louvre and the Paris Opera... >>MORE.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Born in 1947, Georges Lavaudant is a writer and a stage director. He has been successively co-director of the Centre Dramatique National des Alpes (CDNA) between 1975 and 1981, director of La Maison de la Culture de Grenoble (1981-1986), co-director (with Roger Planchon) of the Théâtre National Populaire (Lyon, 1986-1996) and director of the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe (Paris, 1996-2007).

Among his many productions for theatre or opera, in several different countries, one could mention : Lorenzaccio, by Alfred de Musset (Théâtre du Rio, Grenoble, 1973); Le Roi Lear, by William Shakespeare (Théâtre du Rio, Grenoble, 1975); Louve Basse, Louve Basse, by Denis Roche (Festival d'Avignon, 1976); Palazzo Mentale, by Pierre Bourgeade (CDNA, 1976); Maître Puntila et son valet Matti, by Bertold Brecht (CDNA, 1978); La rose et la hache, an adapatation of Shakespeare's Richard III, (CDNA, 1979); Les Géants de la Montagne, by Pirandello (CDNA, 1981), Romeo et Juliette, by Charles Gounod (Opéra de Paris, 1982); Le Balcon, by Jean Genet (Comédie-Française, 1985), Baal and Dans la jungle des villes, by Brecht (TNP, Villeurbanne, 1987); Platanov, by Tchekhov (TNP, Villeurbanne, 1990); Pandora, by Jean-Christophe Bailly (TNP, Villeurbanne, 1992); Hamlet, by Shakespeare (Comédie-Française, 1994); L'Orestie, by Eschylus (Odéon, 1999); Un fil à la patte, by Georges Feydeau (Odéon, 2001); Coriolan, by Shakespeare (Théâtre National de Catalogne à Barcelone, 2002); Attila, by Verdi (Opéra de Vérone, 2008); La nuit de l'iguane, by Tennessee Williams (MC93, Bobigny, 2009). In a near future, Lavaudant will stage a production on Le Clezio's work (Paris, December 2011) and La mort de Danton, by Büchner (MC93 Bobigny) in March 2012.

Born in 1943, Jean-Marie Apostolidès has taught since 1970 in different universities (UQAM, Université de Tours, Université de Montréal, Harvard University, Stanford). Author of many books, he has recently published The Metamorphoses of Tintin, or Tintin for adults (Stanford University Press, 2010). Among his theatre productions, one could mention The Maids, by Jean Genet (Pigott Theatre, Stanford, 1995); Fin de partie, by Samuel Beckett (Prosser Studio, Stanford, 1998); L'Epreuve, by Marivaux (Hal Todd Theatre, San Jose State University, 2000); Antigone, by Jean Anouilh (San Jose City College, 2001); Quartet, by Heiner Muller (Nitery Theatre, Stanford, 2001); Long Day’s Journey into Night, by Eugene O’Neill (Live Oak Theatre, Berkeley, 2002); Caligula dismembered, a free adaptation from Albert Camus, (Pigott Theatre, Stanford, 2004).