The Pavillon Naftule, the new house of humor located in Lausanne (VD), will open its doors on Wednesday November 13. Equipped with a 450-seat room and a 200-seat café-theater foyer, it will host more than 130 performances in three months. La Revue de Lausanne will inaugurate the premises.
After a first series of performances in Cossonay, the actors and dancers of the Revue de Lausanne will be the first to set foot on the stage of this new theater in Lausanne, located at Place Bellerive. From November 13, they will present “À la Une”, a creation which this year has the French-speaking press as its theme.
For the rest, the Pierre Naftule ephemeral pavilion will host a “Dantesque program” from November to February, the organizers point out in their press release. Among the 130 performances which will take place in the south of the Vaudois capital are “Bonne nouvelle”, an exclusive show by Thomas Wiesel or “Pain surprise”, the improvised solo by Blaise Bersinger.
Also on the bill is “I’m fine, but the world is going badly”, first show by Benjamin Décosterd, created at the Pavillon, as well as the last performance of “Madame Helvetia” by Nathalie Devantay.
For programming, the only criterion is talent.
The organizers also cite the shows by Nathanaël Rochat, the thirty-year career of Marie-Thérèse Porchet (Joseph Gorgoni), Julie Conti, as well as performances for young audiences (magic and improvisation) every Wednesday afternoon, alternately hosted by Pierric Tenthorey and Gaëtan Bloom.
Pierre Naftule inspiration
Created in less than a year under the leadership of Sébastien Corthésy, producer, author and director, and the Jokers Comedy teams, the Pavillon Naftule is a unique place in French-speaking Switzerland. Designed by actors for actors, it is inspired by the values of the Genevan writer, producer and director Pierre Naftule, who died in 2022.
>> Also read: Pierre Naftule, Geneva producer and director, died at 61
Two projects came together around this pavilion. First of all, a tribute to Pierre Naftule, by putting comedians under one roof to give them work and opportunities. “Obviously, setting up a room is expensive, it takes time and we always have more urgent things to do. Until the day when the Revue de Lausanne found itself homeless [en raison de travaux de rénovation au Centre culturel des Terreaux à Lausanne]. (…) When we remembered that it was Pierre Naftule who had found the Terreaux Cultural Center for us, we said to ourselves: ‘finally, isn’t it Pierre Naftule who will give us find our future theater?”, says Sébastien Corthésy in the 12:30 of November 7.
This 1,200 m3 temporary structure, soundproofed and heated, is equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics to provide a comfortable and immersive experience for both the public and the artists. This 450-seat theater, the first of this size in Lausanne, will be dismantled on February 16 and will then be reassembled next year for the same period.
Comments collected by Blandine Levite
Adaptation web: ld/ats
