L’École des Maîtres

L’École des Maîtres is an advanced theatrical training project conceived by Franco Quadri in 1990, dedicated to young actresses and actors already active as professionals. Supported from the beginning in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation by the Centre for Research and Experimentation in Artistic Pedagogy (CREPA), it aims to exchange skills in directing methods and practices, through annual traveling workshops led by some of the greatest directors of the time (such as Christiane Jatahy, Tiago Rodrigues, and Angélica Liddell).

The Iranian director and playwright Amir Reza Koohestani has been invited to lead the 33rd edition of the École des Maîtres. Born in 1978 in Iran, he studied directing before joining the Mehr Theatre Group, first as a performer. He then devoted himself to writing his first plays. He worked with the Schauspielhaus of Cologne for Einzelzimmer (2006), and with the Nouveau Théâtre de Besançon for Des utopies ? After two years of study in Manchester, he returned to Tehran in July 2009 and created Where Were You On January 8th?, followed by Ivanov (2011) and The Fourth Wall (2012). His workshop is entitled Everyday Life as Performance: Creating Narratives from Everyday Experiences.

This year, sixteen participants will be selected, four from each of the partner countries of the École des Maîtres (Belgium, France, Italy, and Portugal), along with a few participants from the guest country of the 2025 edition, Slovenia. The evening of August 30, which is free and open to the public, will offer an opportunity to discover their work.