This Year, Avignon Festival Is A Stage For Both Plays And Protest
Every July, for one month a year, the southern French city of Avignon becomes a theater. Actors, directors and playwrights converge on the walled, medieval town, where thespians perform in every playhouse, opera house, church and even in the streets. It's all part of the Avignon Theater Festival, which was started in 1947 by renowned French actor and director Jean Vilar.
"The main idea is that culture is not only for rich people but for everybody," says dramatist Olivier Py, director of this year's 68th Avignon Festival. "That was quite a change. I mean, in [Vilar's] time only people who could afford it could go to [the] theater or concerts. And so Jean Vilar chose a small city, far from Paris, to build a new way of democracy — a culture of democracy."
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