La Fabrique Shakespeare
La Fabrique Shakespeare was created to bring the joy, beauty and wisdom of the Bard’s works to the widest French-speaking audience. A space for sharing knowledge, resources and joy, La Fabrique Shakespeare creates outreach events for all: students from primary school to university, theatre and festival goers, thespians, and the general public, including underprivileged communities.
The events offered are multiple and varied: plays, participatory workshops, illustrated talks, read-alongs, story telling, film screenings and debates, meetings, exhibitions, conferences and panels, translation and acting contests etc.
La Fabrique Shakespeare has also founded Shakespeare d’Avril ! – a « seriously accessible » Shakespeare festival in Vincennes (France), a stone throw away from Paris.
Our aim : provide all audiences with fun, educational, and accessible offers with one intention in mind, bring Shakespeare to all!
Marie-Pierre Dupagne (President/Founder)
Professeure agrégée d’anglais, Marie-Pierre Dupagne taught English in high school for 17 years before she left the French education system in 2002 for family reasons. After a thirteen-months Grand Tour in a campervan with her family, which took her down to the Sahara back up to Iceland and as far as Turkey, Marie-Pierre started work as a volunteer for various festivals in her home town of Vincennes, Paris.
In 2006, she was put in charge of young audience programmes at the Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma de Patrimoine – Prix Henri Langlois film festival. Notably, she created the « Séance pas comme les autres » (a relaxed screening in all but name, with an emphasis on accessibility to all) in partnership with Ciné-ma Différence.
In 2012, she went back to school and furthered her knowledge of the cultural sector with a Master’s degree in Cultural Project Management at IESA, Paris.
From 2013 to 2016, she worked as production and development manager for Le Palais Royal, a choir and orchestra on period instruments.
In 2017, she founded La Fabrique Shakespeare, a non-for profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Shakespeare’s works to French-speaking audiences.
From 2018, she started working for Ciné-ma différence as project manager and carried out a two-year enquiry into Relaxed performance worldwide. The report which followed (published both in French and in English) includes a timeline of Relaxed performance, an extensive list of transferable practices as well as recommendations.
She is co-founder and member of the International Relaxed Performance Network.
In 2019, La Fabrique Shakespeare created Shakespeare d’Avril!, a month-long festival of Shakespearean celebrations for all, in Vincennes.
in the spring of 2023, Vincennes will host Shakespeare d’Avril ! 23, the festival’s second edition, which will include a focus on the 400th anniversary of the First Folio.