David GESELSON
Stage director

David received a writing grant for his shows En Route-Kaddish and Doreen - Autour de Lettre à D. d'André Gorz.

What is your artistic background ?
I have worked mainly as an actor in theatre and cinema since I graduated from the National Conservatory in 2003. I began to approach directing in 2003, while at school, with Eli Eli, a text by Thibault Vinçon. Then in 2009, I crafted a model for the staging of a text by Juan Mayorga, Les Insomniaques, at the Théâtre Gérard Philippe in Saint-Denis. Parallel to my work as an actor, I started writing the project En Route-Kaddishin 2010. I have built a very strong collaboration with Elios Noël, who performs in the show, from writing to directing. We performed En Route-Kaddishin 2014, 2015 and 2016, notably at the Théâtre de Vanves, the Théâtre de la Bastille and the Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil. Last season I worked as an actor with Tiago Rodrigues in Bovary, which he wrote and directed, and participated in the project Occupation Bastille, which he presented at the Théâtre de la Bastille. I am continuing my writing and directing work with Doreen - Autour de Lettre à D. d'André Gorz. Laure Mathis will perform with me in the show we will create in November 2016.

How do you see your profession today ?
The return of collective forms of staging, in which the pooling of ideas and energies proposed by a group of artists unites around a constructed and structured project, seems to me to be an important and often rich moment in the theatrical creation of recent years. I am looking at both the acting, directing and the writing for the stage. I find it very enjoyable not to have to choose between acting and directing, and I hope to be able to continue to navigate from one to the other. Writing and acting feed into directing and vice versa. The violence of the world we live in, with the major geopolitical and ecological upheavals we are currently experiencing, seems to me to find an echo in theatre. At the same time, I feel more than ever a need to get out of reality, to escape and create fiction. I wonder about precisely this tension in theatre, which I see being created around me. 

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
I would like to continue writing, directing and acting. I have high hopes for cinema too, which I find extremely interesting.

This interview was conducted in 2013
Photo credit: Anthony Anciaux