Antoine Bourseiller has just disappeared at the age of 82, after half a century of a breathtaking career as a theatre man. An excellent actor, prolific director and director of many theatrical institutions throughout France, he was one of the last great pioneers of cultural decentralization.
A close collaborator of Gérard Philipe and Maria Casarès, Jean-Luc Godard and Samuel Beckett, he loved to take risks and create plays by young authors such as «America Hurray» by Jean-Claude Van Itallie. He instilled his spirit of storm in small theatres as well as in large theatres: Poche-Montparnasse, Centre dramatique national du Sud-Est in Aix-en-Provence and then Marseille.
Burning the theatre after burning for him, his last great passion was for opera, as director of the Nancy Opera or as director. With a last salute, a last production in 2010 to this other rebel, Jean Genêt, present at the beginning and at the end of his career.
I express my support to his daughters, Rosalie Varda and Marie Sara, and to his son-in-law the actor and writer Christophe Bourseiller.