Festival d'Avignon

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A main venue of the 60th (2006) Avignon Theatre Festival staged at the Popes' Palace, featuring Asobu, a play by the festival artistic associate Josef Nadj (fifth from the left).

The Festival d'Avignon, the Avignon Theatre Festival is France's oldest existing and most famous. It was founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar.

Jean Vilar was invited to present one of his productions - Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, that had already won acclaim in Paris - at the same time as a modern painting exhibition in the Palais des Papes (the Popes' Palace), organised by art critic and collector, Christian Zervos, and by the poet, René Char.

Used to working on a small stage, Vilar initially refused the offer because he felt the Cour d'Honneur in the Popes' Palace was too vast, and "shapeless". Instead, he suggested putting on three other plays as new productions - Shakespeare's Richard II, one of the Bard's plays that was little known at the time in France; Paul Claudel's Tobie et Sara, and Maurice Clavel's second play, La Terrasse de Midi (The Midday Terrace). The very first Avignon Festival in September 1947 set the scene as a showcase for unknown work and modern scripts.

There are four distinct stages in the evolution of the Avignon Festival.