André Clavé
André Clavé (Bordeaux, 1916 – Paris, 1981) was a French actor, theatre director, and businessman. He was also an active member of the French Resistance.
Before World War II, in 1936, he founded the Comédiens de la Roulotte together with François Darbon and Jean Desailly.
A comrade of Pierre Sudreau in the Air Force, he joined the Resistance group Réseau Brutus in September 1942. He was interrogated and imprisoned in Fresnes Prison by the Gestapo, and later interned in the Royallieu concentration camp, opposite the Buchenwald camp. Transferred to the Dora Harzungen concentration camp, he escaped with three other companions and wandered through Germany for a month.
With the arrival of the French Fourth Republic, Lawrence Jeanne took over Clavé's theatre company, and they staged traveling performances in Alsace and Lorraine. On May 4, 1947, Clavé was appointed director of the National Drama Center of Eastern France (Théâtre National de Strasbourg), where he replaced Roland Pietri. He promoted the principle of theatrical decentralization, combining performances of classical, contemporary, and foreign playwrights. He was succeeded by Michel Saint-Denis on January 1, 1952. In 1955, he participated with Pierre Schaeffer in the French Radio and Television School.
He married Francine-Galliard Risler, a designer for Charles Dullin.
Theatre Directing Work
- The Well of the Saints by John Millington Synge
- 1947: L'Arlésienne by Alphonse Daudet, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1947: The Long Voyage by Robert Cedric Sherriff, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1947: The Shadow of a Sniper by Seán O'Casey, Théâtre Tristan Bernard
- 1948: The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1948: The Little Clay Cart by Sudraka, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1948: English as It's Spoken by Tristan Bernard, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1948: Tartuffe by Molière, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1948: The Bourgeois Gentleman by Molière, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1949: Hamlet by William Shakespeare, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1949: The Miracle of the Poor Man by Marian Hemar, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1949: Rosmersholm by Henrik Ibsen, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar
- 1949: A Man of God by Gabriel Marcel, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar, Théâtre Tristan Bernard
- 1949: The Burning Chapel by Gabriel Marcel, National Drama Center of Eastern France, Colmar, Théâtre Tristan Bernard
- 1950: Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw
- 1952: The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, Théâtre de l'Œuvre
- 1954: Captain Smith by Jean Blanchon, Théâtre Montparnasse
References
- Michel Corvin, "André Clavé", from The Directors of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, Strasbourg Theatre website.
- "André Clavé 1916-1981", page of Le Réseau Brutus-Boyer.
- Francine Galliard-Risler. André Clavé: Theatre and Resistance - Utopias and Realities. Paris: Association des amis d'André Clavé, 1998.