Porte Saint-Martin, a theatre on boulevard Saint-Martin since 1781

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin on boulevard Saint-Martin was built in two months in 1781 by Nicolas Lenoir for the Académie royale de musique, whose hall at the Palais-Royal had just burned down. It opened on 27 October 1781 with Adèle de Ponthieu, set to music by Piccinni, and then held 1,800 seats.

Reopened in 1802 under its present name, it became the home of melodrama and then of Romantic drama. Frédérick Lemaître, Marie Dorval and Mademoiselle George played Dumas’s Antony and La Tour de Nesle there, then Victor Hugo’s plays: Marion de Lorme, Marie Tudor and Lucrèce Borgia.

Burned on 25 May 1871 it was rebuilt by Oscar de la Chardonnière and reopened on 28 September 1873 with Marie Tudor. Sarah Bernhardt appeared there repeatedly, and on 28 December 1897 Edmond Rostand premiered Cyrano de Bergerac. The Regnier family ran it from 1949, then Jean-Claude Camus from 2001.

Listed as a historic monument since 1992, this private theatre of about a thousand seats, in the 10th arrondissement, belongs to the Théâtres parisiens associés. The Petit-Saint-Martin, with 190 seats, occupies Marcel Marceau’s former mime school.