Posted Jan 25, 2023, 7:00 AM
“When I was in high school, the idea of doing theater or comedy didn’t even cross my mind. At the time, my thing was ice dancing at a high level. I went to the ice rink in the morning before class, at noon and after class. I spent fifteen to twenty hours a week there, so I didn’t have time for extra hobbies.
To be able to skate, I left the family cocoon of Sandrans (Ain) from the second to approach a skating rink. I slept with locals during my first two years of high school. In terminale, I heard about the boarding school of excellence Park High School in Lyon , an establishment normally reserved for prep students but which accepted a few high school students. I applied and with my very good academic record, I was taken.
In high school as in preparatory classes
Despite my good level, it was a very intense year. The requirements were really higher than my previous establishment. I had the impression of having the rhythm of the prep students with whom I was at boarding school, and an equally sustained rhythm in parallel skating. I spent my life between my boarding school room, the classrooms and the ice rink. I felt like I was living locked up in a mini Hogwarts…
At the end of high school, I did not have the level in ice dancing to make a career, so I had to choose Admission Post Bac (the ancestor of ParcoursSup). Despite a Bac S with high honors, scientific studies did not appeal to me. I wanted to do sports journalism, surely to keep a foothold in the world of sport, and skating.
“My dream was to replace Nelson Monfort”
I wanted to be a sports journalist for TV, and comment on major skating and tennis competitions. My dream was to replace Nelson Monfort. Not at all in the same style but doing its job.
Going down this path meant joining a school of journalism, and since few of them were recognized with a post-baccalaureate course, the idea came to me of doing Sciences Po, then doing a master’s degree with a school of partner journalism. Sciences Po Lille offered a double master’s degree so I passed the competition, and I entered among the best, I was super happy.
The first year does not go as planned. I sink into a deep depression. I had things to settle with myself. I preferred to return to Lyon for the 2nd year, still at Sciences Po.
“It was disillusionment but I felt that it was not going to intoxicate me all my life”
In 3rd year, I went on exchange to London – the best year of my studies. Arrived in Master, in spite of some hesitations with the sports marketing, I made the specialization journalism by Science Po Lyon . It was good, I was even able to regain my skating a little, I was satisfied but still in doubt. For my end-of-studies internship, I was taken on by Canal+ in public relations, but I ended up cutting my internship short… It was a terribly dehumanizing job. I hated.
I continued with an internship at the regional daily press newspaper Le Progrès in Bourg-en-Bresse, in Ain. It went very well, I liked it a lot. However, I did not see myself continuing on this path. I felt that it was not going to intoxicate me all my life and I did not want to struggle for years before really having the job of my dreams. It was disillusionment.
The start on the boards
After a big existential crisis once I got my master’s degree, I had an intuition, I had to try the stage. I joined an amateur theater group in Lyon, called “the navel of the world” . I played there sketches already written, sometimes in front of an audience and I loved it.
At the same time, I had odd jobs, notably hosting company events, it was funny. I was doing parodies of Koh Lanta or Fort Boyard. Although everything is scripted and pre-designed, there was an improvisation part depending on the synergy of the groups. He was a trainer for the theatre.
After a year, I discovered by chance a humor contest, candidate , organized by René-Marc Guedj’s School of Humor and Performing Arts. Without an audition, we would go on stage and do a skit for five minutes.
The first rounds were won by applause, and it worked well, since I had all my friends come (laughs). Well, in terms of quality, with hindsight, I can say that it wasn’t great… I saw it again recently and it lacks rhythm, in-depth jokes.
Drafts of a first show
I then joined the national competition which took place in Paris, where I reached the semi-finals. It was very stimulating because I wrote a ten-minute sketch every month. By force, I had thirty-forty minutes of sketch, and there it clicked. I realized that I really liked it. And that’s how I started little by little and my first show was born, the opportunity to talk about neuroses, bipolarity, start-ups and coming-outs, a vast program.
From September 2019 until June 2022, I played this show in Lyon at Boui-boui . Last summer, I played it at the Festival d’Avignon. Since September, I’ve been on stage in Paris, every Tuesday evening at the Comédie des 3 Cornes . Obviously, it has evolved enormously since 2019. It even changed its name!
When I started playing at Boui-Boui, a small theater in Lyon, I signed an annual contract for three performances a week. Despite the cut due to the Covid, as I was hired in May 2020, I was able to play again. I’m really lucky. Some nights I played in front of very few people, sometimes only four people. but I rode. Obviously, it is difficult, but necessary to improve. When you make a room of four people laugh, you know you can make fifty people laugh.
Parisian residence, an incredible opportunity
Since I went to Paris in September 2022 I play once a week at the Comédie des 3 Bornes. We are far from the rhythm that I had at Boui-Boui, where I did five weekly performances during my last months of residency. But in Paris, it’s impossible to play five days a week and I already consider myself lucky to have regular programming.
This unique performance in the week allows me, with my director Nicolas Vital, to refine my show. It leaves time for writing sessions, rehearsals, networking, going to improv sets to play excerpts and talk about the show…it’s super beneficial! I am not short of work. It’s a real personal investment, it’s a business plan to set up somewhere. When you play five nights a week, you don’t have the time or the necessary perspective to develop your show like that.
Especially since today, even with only one performance per week, my fees are enough to live on and that’s really a great opportunity. »
