Theatre · Madeleine · 8e arrondissement

Théâtre Michel

The buildingStill standing

Getting inHours or admission

What's there nowStill the same

Still operating on the rue des Mathurins, beside the Mathurins.

Where the stage version of Chéri premiered in 1921, and where Colette herself played Léa at its hundredth performance.

Address: 38 rue des Mathurins, 75008 Paris
Years: 1906–present

Illustration The Théâtre Michel entrance in colour on rue des Mathurins, with current playbills

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

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

The stage adaptation of Colette's novel Chéri opened at the Théâtre Michel on 13 December 1921, with Jeanne Rolly as Léa and Pierre de Guingand in the title role. Chéri is the story of a long affair between the young man of the title and Léa, an aging courtesan, and its move to the stage carried one of Colette's best-known novels into the theatre.

For the hundredth performance, on 26 February 1922, Colette took the role of Léa herself — by then in her late forties, playing the part she had written. The theatre, inaugurated in 1906, still stands on the rue des Mathurins a few doors from the Théâtre des Mathurins where she had made her stage debut sixteen years earlier.

Key facts

Address: 38 rue des Mathurins, 8th arrondissement
Opened: 1906
Colette's connection: The stage Chéri premiered here in 1921; Colette played Léa at the 100th performance in 1922
Today: Still operating as a theatre

In images

Pen-and-ink illustration of the Théâtre Michel façade on rue des Mathurins, 'THÉÂTRE MICHEL' over the entrance and a vertical 'MICHEL' sign, playbills beside the doors — The Théâtre Michel, where the stage Chéri premiered in 1921 and Colette played Léa herself in 1922.Editorial illustration

The Théâtre Michel entrance in colour on rue des Mathurins, with current playbills — The theatre today, a small house near the Gare Saint-Lazare.Editorial illustration

Timeline

1906
The Théâtre Michel is inaugurated.
1921
The stage adaptation of Chéri premieres on 13 December, with Jeanne Rolly as Léa.
1922
Colette plays Léa herself at the hundredth performance, 26 February.

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 · 1921–1922

The stage adaptation of Colette's Chéri premiered at the Théâtre Michel on 13 December 1921; Colette played Léa herself at the hundredth performance on 26 February 1922.

— Société des amis de Colette — Chronology

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Théâtre des Mathurins

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