In 1994, the Sydney Theatre Company, in partnership with the Comédie-Française, the SACD and the Australian Embassy in France, partnered with the Maison Antoine Vitez to present an Australian theatrical repertoire. Six plays were translated and given staged readings  at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier during the Australian Playwrights’ Week in June 1995. This program allowed the public to discover, among others, authors such as Karin Mainwaring (whose Les Danseurs de la pluie premiered at the Vieux-Colombier in 2001) and Daniel Keene, who is now very much present on the French stage.

In 2019, thanks in particular to the presence in France of Australian playwright Lachlan Philpott, the Embassy proposed to associate MAV with Australia now in order to highlight a new generation of authors through the selection of another six plays, each written after 2010. 

Dominique Hollier, Gisèle Joly and Séverine Magois read more than seventy plays. After selecting about twenty, they invited five other translators from the English committee to join them to read and discuss the texts, and to select the final six titles. The selection was guided primarily by the intrinsic quality of the texts, but also respected gender equality, diversity and a varied repertoire. 

The selection is composed of three pieces written by men and three by women, including a play by an Indigenous author, a play for young adults and a play for children. 

• Melissa Bubnic – I Do Believe in Monsters (translation Catherine Hargeaves and Adélaïde Pralon)
• Angus Cerini – The Bleeding Tree (translation Dominique Hollier)
• Jub Clerc – The Fever and the Fret (translation Aurore Kahan)
• Kendall Feaver – The Almighty Sometimes (translation Sabine Haudepin, Dominique Hollier, Séverine Magois et Adélaïde Pralon)
• Tom Holloway – Storm-Boy (translation Séverine Magois)
• Lachlan Philpott – Truck Stop (translation Gisèle Joly) 

In addition to the six plays selected for Australia now, this extensive reading has allowed Maison Antoine Vitez to discover other authors and inspire the MAV English committee to continue to explore and translate Australian writing into the years to come.

More information on https://www.maisonantoinevitez.com

Readings to come :

• The Bleeding Tree – Angus Cerini

13 November – Paris, Comédie Française (Théâtre du Vieux Colombier)

Reading led by Alain Lenglet

• Truck Stop – Lachlan Philpott

5 March – Marseille, Théâtre Joliette

Reading led by Carole Errante