Théâtre Déjazet, a theatre on boulevard du Temple since 1851

The Théâtre Déjazet on boulevard du Temple opened in 1851, when the songwriter Joseph-Simon Mayer set up a café-concert, the Folies-Mayer, in a former real tennis court. The building dates from 1770: the architect François-Joseph Bélanger raised it for the Comte d’Artois, and Mozart played there in 1778.

In 1854 the composer Hervé staged his little comic pieces there and gave birth to operetta; Offenbach had Oyayaye performed in 1855. In 1859 the actress Virginie Déjazet secured the hall for the young Victorien Sardou and gave it her name. Tire-au-flanc, first staged in 1904, ran for more than a thousand performances.

The only theatre of the boulevard du crime spared by Haussmann’s works, it became a cinema from 1939 to 1976: Marcel Carné filmed the interiors of Les Enfants du paradis there in 1944. Jean Bouquin returned it to the stage, Coluche played there in 1977, and Léo Ferré opened the Théâtre libertaire de Paris in 1986.

Listed as a historic monument since 1990, the hall keeps frescoes by Honoré Daumier. In the 3rd arrondissement, close to place de la République, it now hosts theatre, magic, ballet and concerts.