Georges Lavaudant is one of the most renowned theater directors in France today. Over the course of his career, he has directed the Théâtre national populaire at Villeurbanne and the Théâtre de l'Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, among others. He has directed and acted in countless plays and operas over the years. Some of his productions include Lorenzaccio (1973), King Lear (1975), Mr. Puntila and his Man Matti (1978), Richard III (1984), The Balcony (1985), Platonov (1990), Pawana (1992), Hamlet (1994), King Lear (again, in 1996), Ajax-Philoctetes (1997), Oresteia (1999), Danton's Death (2002), The Cherry Orchard (2004), The Night of the Iguana (2009) and The Tempest (2010). He has also directed his own plays, as well as plays by Michel Deutsch, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Carmelo Bene, and Christa Wolf, among others. Some of the operas he has directed include Wagner's Tristan & Isolde and Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. His artistic activity has taken him all over the world, where he has on numerous occasions directed plays in other languages as well as in his native French. Georges Lavaudant recently spent time at Stanford University in the autumn of 2011 to direct a new production of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, a production on which Prof. Apostolidès advised and collaborated.

Jean-Marie Apostolidès is William H. Bonsall Professor of French as well as in the Department of Drama at Stanford University. He received his PhD from the University of Tours in 1977 after having studied in Paris and in Nanterre. He has also taught in Toronto, Montréal, and Harvard, not only literature and theater but also the social sciences. Apostolidès is the author of many books, including critical studies, novels, and plays. His works include “Le roi-machine” (1981), “Les métamorphoses de Tintin” (1984, republished in 2003 and 2006), “Le prince sacrifié” (1985), “L'affaire unabomber” (1996), “Les tombeaux de Guy Debord” (1999), “L'audience” (2001), “Tintin et le mythe du surenfant” (2003), “Héroisme et victimisation” (2003, republished in 2008), “Il faut construire l'hacienda” (2006), “Cyrano, qui fut tout et qui ne fut rien” (2006), and “Dans la peau de Tintin” (2011). His book, “The Metamorphoses of Tintin,” has been recently published in English (2010) by Stanford University Press. His interests in and expertise of theater are varied, spanning from classical French theater from the 17th- and 18th- century to 20th-century theater and the contemporary avant-garde.

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