Theatre in France was the first in Europe to be written in the vernacular as opposed to Latin. It has provided the English language with the medieval word farce, the early-modern word role, and the modern term mise en scène. Molière is single-handedly responsible for launching European-style playwriting in North Africa. Today, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that it's harder to get tickets for the Festival d'Avignon, one of the world's largest theatre festivals, than for the Rolling Stones' farewell tour. Containing chapters by globally eminent theatre experts, many of whom will be read in English for the first time, this collaborative history testifies to the central part theatre has played for over a thousand years in both French culture and world culture. Crucially, too, it places centre-stage the genders, ethnicities and classes that have had to wait in the wings of theatres, and of theatre criticism.

‘A New History of Theatre in France is an exciting book that brings fresh insight and ranges from the fifteenth century to the present time. Unlike previous histories of French theatre, Finburgh Delijani's collection both highlights the central part theatre has played in French culture over the centuries and updates the specificities and interconnections between different periods and geographical locations that make up the French theatrical landscape.'

Osita Okagbue - Professor of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London

‘Assembling an impressive range of academics and practitioners, this revisionist history of a nation's theatrical culture insightfully sites the legacy of patronage, empire, revolutions, colonialism and world wars on the ways in which theatre has been made and valued. Examining the influence of French dramatists and theatre-makers beyond France, the volume saliently identifies what travels where and why. The result is a study of the centrality of theatre to French culture that has far-reaching implications for understandings of drama, theatre and performance across the globe.'

Maria Delgado - Professor of Theatre and Screen Arts, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London

‘This rich collection of essays provides a very welcome challenge to traditional anglophone preconceptions about French theatre. Ranging far beyond France’s metropolitan centre, leading experts from multiple fields bring performances in the provinces and across the French colonies centre stage. From the middle ages into the twenty-first century, questions of nationalism and transnational identity, race and gender, social class and state control are shown to have been routinely explored in a wide range of performance venues. At long last, French theatre history has been liberated from both a traditional neo-classical straitjacket and an exclusionary, masculinist lens.’

Fiona Macintosh - Professor of Classical Reception, University of Oxford