Theatre · Madeleine · 8e arrondissement

Théâtre des Mathurins

The buildingStill standing

Getting inHours or admission

What's there nowStill the same

Still operating as a theatre on the rue des Mathurins.

Where Colette made her public stage debut in 1906, the first step of the music-hall career that won her independence from Willy.

Address: 36 rue des Mathurins, 75008 Paris
Years: 1897–present

Illustration The Théâtre des Mathurins auditorium in colour, seats and gilded balconies toward the stage

The house today, a small theatre near the Gare Saint-Lazare.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

Colette first appeared before a paying Paris audience at the Théâtre des Mathurins, in February 1906. She played a faun in Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour, a mimed drama, in performances that ran from the 6th to the 25th. She was thirty-three, still married to the writer Willy, who had published the Claudine novels under his own name, and the stage was how she began to earn a living and a public identity of her own.

The engagement launched a run of pantomime and music-hall work across 1906 and 1907 — the Olympia, the Théâtre Marigny, the Moulin Rouge — that made her, for a few years, a professional performer as much as a writer. The theatre opened in 1897 and still operates on the rue des Mathurins in the 8th arrondissement.

Key facts

Address: 36 rue des Mathurins, 8th arrondissement
Opened: 1897
Colette's connection: Her public stage debut, February 1906, as a faun in Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour
Today: Still operating as a theatre

In images

Pen-and-ink illustration of the auditorium of the Théâtre des Mathurins, the horseshoe of seats and balconies seen from the side toward the stage — The auditorium of the Théâtre des Mathurins, where Colette made her public stage debut in 1906.Editorial illustration

The Théâtre des Mathurins auditorium in colour, seats and gilded balconies toward the stage — The house today, a small theatre near the Gare Saint-Lazare.Editorial illustration

Timeline

1897
The Théâtre des Mathurins opens.
1906
Colette makes her public stage debut here, 6–25 February, in a mimed role.
1906–1907
A run of music-hall engagements follows at the Olympia, the Marigny and the Moulin Rouge.

On the map

Writers who knew this place

Colette

French · The French novelist who wrote the Claudine books under Willy’s name, earned her independence on the music-hall stage, and made women’s private lives a serious literary subject.

Performed here · 1906

Colette's public stage debut: she played a faun in the mimed drama Le Désir, la Chimère et l'Amour, 6–25 February 1906.

— Société des amis de Colette — Chronology

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