Muriel Mayette-Holtz

The first woman to have directed the Comédie-Française, Muriel Mayette-Holtz has been the first woman to head theFrench Academy in Rome - Villa Medici since September 2015 . Muriel Mayette-Holtz joined the Comédie-Française in 1985 at the age of twenty, after training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique, and was appointed its 477th member in 1988. She has performed in numerous roles under the direction of Antoine Vitez (La Célestine by Rojas, 1989), Claude Régy (Huis clos by Sartre, 1990), Jacques Lassalle (La Fausse Suivante by Marivaux, 1991; George Dandin by Molière, 1992; Platonov by Chekhov, 2003), Matthias Langhoff (Danse de mort by Strindberg, 1996; Büchner's Lenz, Léonce et Léna, 2002), Alain Françon (Chekhov's La Cerisaie, 1998), Philippe Adrien (Genet's Les Bonnes, 1997), Catherine Hiegel (Pinter's Les Femmes savantes and Le Retour, 2000), Claude Stratz (Molière's Le Malade imaginaire, 2001; Pirandello's Les Grelots du fou, 2005). In 2007-2008, she performed at the Comédie-Française and on tour in Le Malade imaginaire by Molière, directed by Claude Stratz, and Fables de la Fontaine by Robert Wilson.
She also directed Oh! mais où est la tête by Victor Hugo? in 1990; at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, she staged Crommelynck's Les Amants puérils in 1993, Feydeau's Chat en poche in 1998, Karin Mainwaring's Les Danseurs de la pluie in 2001, Marivaux's La Dispute in 2009; at the Studio-Théâtre, Shakespeare's Le Conte d'hiver in 2004, and Thomas Bernhard's Dramuscules in 2005. For the Salle Richelieu stage, she directed Corneille's Clitandre in 1996, Bernard Marie-Koltès's Le Retour au désert in 2007, L'Hommage à Molière in 2008, Dario Fo's Mystère bouffe et fabulages, Jean Racine's Andromaque in 2010, Une Histoire de la Comédie-Française in 2012 and Le Songe d'une nuit d'été in 2014.
Her production of Bérénice premiered on tour during the 2010-2011 season. Outside the Comédie-Française, she has appeared in Le Misanthrope directed by André Engel; Gogol's Inspector General, Heiner Müller's Quartett and Garcia Lorca's Dona Rosita, all directed by Matthias Langhoff; and La Leçon de M. Pantalone, with Mario Gonzalez, directed by Christophe Patty (on tour in 2006). She became General Administrator in 2006. Muriel Mayette-Holtz has been named Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier du Mérite and Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur.

In just one year of her tenure in Rome, she has already left her mark at Villa Medici by creating numerous cultural events. In September 2016, she launched ¡VivaVilla!, a festival of artist residencies, in association with Casa de Velázquez in Madrid and Villa Medici Kujoyama in Kyoto, enabling French audiences to discover in Paris recent works by artists hosted by these three major institutions. Muriel Mayette-Holtz has also set up Les jeudis de Villa Medici. Questions d'art, a weekly series of encounters open to the public free of charge, with guest artists from all disciplines. This program, presented in French and Italian, is a great success in Roman cultural life. The director is organizing a contemporary art exhibition project to showcase major female artists.