How would you define the Improvidence café-theatre that you created?
It's a place with 50 seats where everyone can find what they're looking for: improv wrestling, group or solo shows, drawing, music or even English.
The spectator lives an experience and participates with the actors in the creation of the show. It is also a place where you learn to gain self-confidence, to know yourself and to overcome your shyness.
We offer a rich program by welcoming amateur and professional companies, French and foreign.
How did you get caught up in the improvisation bug?
Originally from Meurthe-et-Moselle, I worked for Seb and arrived in Lyon as part of a professional transfer.
Originally, not at all. I studied engineering in Nancy and, in 1997, I joined the SEB group for which I worked for twenty years. I discovered improvisation about ten years ago.
It was also there, at Espace Gerson, that I saw my first improvisation show. And I immediately loved it because I would say that improvisation is a learning of representation and posture which allows you to develop your spontaneity and your creativity.
What does the Improvidence school offer in terms of training?
It offers tailor-made training so you can learn at your own pace with weekly classes and internships.
Monthly subscriptions increase flexibility in everyone's learning pace.
Every Friday evening, a speaker gives a free course from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., which often leads to new registrations.
Since its opening at the end of 2017, the school has welcomed 2,500 students supervised by 85 trainers. All social categories are represented.
Children and adolescents represent 25% of students, and the average age of adults is 30-32 years old.
And at the corporate level, you also do quite unique work, don't you?
The first confinement with the total cessation of performances for a time which seemed very long to us gave time to reflect, I told myself that the crisis could also be an opportunity. to transform the economic model of my theater.
We use theater as a tool, which also allows us to re-engage employees on a new project, for example.
For our part, we test ideas, it's a bet that often pays off and it constitutes around 50% of our current turnover.
What attracted you so much to improvisation?
Certainly the possibility of realizing oneself and saying things that one would find difficult to express.
To connect with yourself, but also with others by developing self-control, body and language.
To share my passion, I created the Improvidence theater in 2014.
This establishment offers more than 1,000 performances each year for 40,000 spectators.
Faced with a demand for training, I founded the first improvisation school in Lyon.
What are the pieces from these ten years that have particularly marked you as director of the place and that you wanted to highlight in a special retrospective?
Among the unmissable events of these ten years, the public will be able to (re)discover “Mon Pote”, an improvisation on friendship, where friends ready to do anything support each other in the most incredible situations.
I would also mention “Bio”, the famous creation of the company Eux, which improvises the biography of an unknown hero through flashbacks, eccentric characters and surprising anecdotes
I'm also thinking of “Senflix”, an improvised platform which creates a unique series live, initially performed in the theater we created in Bordeaux and which has come to seduce the Lyon public just for the 10th anniversary.
Find the full program here.
