HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The theatre company Les Deux Mondes was founded in January 1973 under the name of Théâtre de la Marmaille, following a writing workshop given by actress Monique Rioux under the aegis of the Centre (d'essai) des auteurs dramatiques. The company's first plays were aimed at young audiences. Its first adult production, La Vie à trois étages (1977), resulted from workshops held in a working-class neighbourhood.

As a creation company, Les Deux Mondes has produced outstanding plays that have enriched dramatic art in Québec and helped it earn a reputation as an exciting theatre centre. As a research company, it likes to explore a unique type of theatrical language for each and every show. This has resulted in 24 very different productions, where music is however always very present. In recent years, the work has increasingly evolved towards the integration of the multimedia within a theatrical perspective. Les Deux Mondes's work is disseminated locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The shows were created in French and translated in English, and the company has even performed some of them in Spanish, German and Russian.

For its 20th anniversary, the company changed its name to "Les Deux Mondes, compagnie de théâtre." In 1996 it build a creation and production centre in Villeray, a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Montréal.

Dissemination outside of the country began in the early 1980s and has grown ever since. Some of the plays have been remarkably influential, in terms of impact, originality, international touring, number of performances or longevity, and have earned Les Deux Mondes numerous awards, such as Crying to Laugh (Pleurer pour rire, 1980, 580 performances), L'Umiak/The Collective Boat (1982, 300 performances), Promised Land (Terre promise/Terra promessa, a coproduction with Teatro dell'Angolo, 1989, 580 performances), The Tale of Teeka (L'Histoire de l'oie, 1991-2007, 549 performances), Leitmotiv (1996, 175 performances, still running), and Living Memory (Mémoire vive, 2000, more than 300 performances, still running). The company has given over 3,400 performances in 200 cities and performed in 32 countries on all 5 continents.