A prolific French stage director with over one hundred productions to his credit, Alain Françon co-founded the Théâtre Eclaté in 1971. He went on to direct the Centre dramatique national de Lyon-Théâtre du Huitième from 1989 to 1992, before founding and then directing the Centre dramatique national de Savoie from 1992 to 1996. On 12th November 1996, he was appointed director of the Théâtre national de la Colline, a position he held until January 2010, reaffirming his commitment to modern and contemporary works by authors including Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, Odon von Horvath, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Kaiser, Hans Henny Jahnn, August Strindberg and Heiner Müller, Edward Bond, Michel Vinaver, Eugène Durif, François Bon, Olivier Cadiot, Valère Novarina, Didier-Georges Gabily, Hubert Colas, Gildas Milin, Toni Negri and Jean-Luc Lagarce.
From the turn of one century to another, the issues explored by these writers are underpinned by a desire to “make some kind of sense of the world’s chaos” and an insistence on the playwright’s primacy in shaping dramatic works.
Since becoming director of the Théâtre national de la Colline in 1996, he has directed six plays by Edward Bond, four by Anton Chekhov, and works by Georges Feydeau, Michel Vinaver, Henrik Ibsen, Michel Deutsch, Rainald Goetz, Daniel Danis, Eugène Durif and Marius von Mayenburg.
In January 2010, after leaving the Théâtre national de la Colline, he founded the Théâtre des nuages de neige. Since then, he has created Du mariage au divorce by Feydeau, Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, The Master Builder by Ibsen, People by Edward Bond, Storm Still by Peter Handke, Time and the Room by Botho Strauss, A Month in the Country by Turgenev adapted by Michel Vinaver, Les Innocents, moi et l’inconnue au bord de la route départementale by Handke, The Misanthrope by Molière, The Second Surprise of Love by Marivaux, Eve of Retirement by Thomas Bernhard, Kolik by Rainald Goetz, Le Moment psychologique by Nicolas Doutey, Waiting for Godot and First Love by Beckett, The Italian Straw Hat by Labiche, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? by Albee. At the Comédie Française, he has directed The Three Sisters by Chekhov, The Trilogy of Summer and The Mistress of the Inn by Goldoni, and The Sea by Edward Bond.
Alain Françon has received numerous awards, including the Molière Award for Best Director for Edward Bond’s War Plays in 1994, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in 1995, and Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? in 2016 ; the Syndicat de la critique’s Grand Prizes for In the Company of Men by Edward Bond (first version 1992/93, second version 1994/95); the Syndicat de la critique’s Prize for Best Show for The Second Surprise of Love and for two roles in 2022; the SACD Prize for Best Director in 2012 and the SACD Plaisir du Théâtre Prize in 2018.