Regards croisés Festival

Regards croisés: The Festival of Living Theatrical Writing

The Regards croisés festival is the annual meeting place for contemporary theatrical writing and its authors, organized by the artistic collective Troisième bureau at Théâtre 145 in Grenoble. Since its creation in 2001, this artistic, intellectual, and convivial event extends the research, workshops, and public readings carried out by the collective throughout the year on today's dramaturgy.

A Unique Meeting Place Between Authors and Audiences

Each edition of the festival brings together about twenty theater authors, translators, and poets from different countries in Europe, the French-speaking world, and beyond. They come to Grenoble for the presentation of their texts, encounters, and workshops. The principle is simple and powerful: each evening, a staged reading of a new play is followed by a meeting with the author, creating a direct dialogue between dramatic writing and the audience.

A Rich and Multidisciplinary Program

The Regards croisés festival is a general event combining staged readings, creations, encounters, round tables, workshops, and a bookstore. About twenty professional actors, accompanied by students from conservatories and high schools, give voice to the original and political texts presented during the festival. The readings are staged by directors, offering a true theatrical experience to the spectators.

The Naomi Wallace Prize: A Commitment to Youth

The festival created the Naomi Wallace Prize, a dramatic literature award decided by the vote of 200 high school students from the Grenoble academy. As part of high school reading groups, six second-year classes discover plays selected from those proposed by theater publishing houses. The prize is awarded during the festival in the presence of the American author Naomi Wallace, a committed playwright whose name was given to this distinction. This initiative demonstrates the festival's commitment to transmission and cultural mediation for young audiences.

A Collective Serving Contemporary Theater

Troisième bureau, founded in Grenoble in 2000, is an artistic collective bringing together professionals from theater, books, and education within a reading committee. It works for a "critical" dissemination of contemporary theatrical writing and constitutes a true resource center for today's dramaturgy. The collective received the Prix d'or du Petit Bulletin in 2019, recognizing its essential role in maintaining the vitality of live theater and preventing stages from relying solely on classical authors.

A Free Festival Open to All

One of the major unique features of Regards croisés is the complete freeness of all its events. Readings, encounters, round tables, workshops: everything is freely accessible, subject to availability. This pricing policy allows all audiences—spectators, theater professionals, teachers, students, high school students—to fully participate in this celebration of contemporary dramatic writing.