Bouffes du Nord, a theatre on boulevard de La Chapelle since 1876

The Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord opened in 1876 at 37 bis boulevard de La Chapelle. The architect Émile Leménil designed it as a café-concert, on the foundations of a barracks that was never built: 503 seats across a stalls, a tier of boxes and a gallery.

The district, poorly lit and poorly served, kept audiences away. Abel Ballet staged La Reine Margot with the young Yvette Guilbert, and Lugné-Poe played Ibsen here with the Théâtre de l’Œuvre in 1893 and 1894. Renamed Théâtre Molière in 1904, it became a music hall again in 1917, then closed in 1952 for safety reasons.

Threatened with demolition, it was bought in 1969 and entrusted to Peter Brook and Micheline Rozan’s International Centre for Theatre Research, who reopened it in 1974 with Timon of Athens. The theatre was listed as a historic monument in 1993. Olivier Mantei and Olivier Poubelle took over in 2010, and Gérard Fromanger painted the foyer ceiling in 2020.

Near La Chapelle métro, in the 10th arrondissement, the Bouffes du Nord presents theatre, opera and music, its own productions and shows that later go on tour.