After winning one of the two annual Mérite patrimonial awards presented by the Musée régional de Vaudreuil-Soulanges, unveiled at the Museum's Annual General Meeting on April 24; and received a $500 bursary from the Centre des arts et de la culture de Vaudreuil-Soulanges (CACVS) for this public recognition, Philippe Gauthier and Théâtre de la Pièce cassée are now in the running for an award to be presented on May 14, at the 22nd edition of the Soirée des prix en art en culture de la Montérégie.

Philippe is nominated in the following category 

Prix relève Télé-Québec / Culture Montérégie

Awarded since 2006, this prize, which includes a $2,000 bursary, a portrait-video produced by the La Fabrique culturelle team, training from Culture Montérégie's Continuing Education Department and a personalized advisory meeting, is designed to recognize the excellence of the work of an emerging Montérégie artist or artists' collective. It's also a way of encouraging career support and recognition for artists aged 18 to 35. 

Philippe is nominated in this category along with two other artists,

Néomédia took the opportunity to interview 31-year-old Vaudreuil-Dorion resident Philippe Gauthier.

In summer 2023, the young author created the project Léonise Valois - Une histoire vraie, réinventée.

“Museum director Daniel Bissonnette called to tell me I'd been awarded the prize, which I wasn't expecting. I think it's mainly the research work on the Léoise Valois - Une histoire vraie, réinventée project that has been recognized, and I'm proud of that.“

Léonise Valois was the first woman to publish a book of poetry in Quebec. Yet she remains little-known to this day. To fill in the gaps in history, Théâtre de la Pièce cassée turned to the young and old of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region.

“I met with about thirty seniors. I think the school model hadn't changed much between 1860 and 1960, before the Quiet Revolution. I wrote the play based on Léonise Valois's poems, set to song. It was a rather atypical project. In fact, the project called for a single performance on a festive evening in 2023, and required a great deal of work, with constant practice a month before the show, both with the actors and the musicians.“

The creator also drew on the talent and interest of several young people from Vaudreuil-Dorion's day camps to insert their participation in the final evening, in a form he believes he invented and has dubbed a pièce à trous.

As described by the creator, the idea is to practice with the actors and musicians for three-quarters of a play, leaving empty scenes to be filled on the evening of the performance. It was the young people from the day camps who filled these vacant scenes: 48 young people for L'oiseau bleu in 2021, 24 young people for Lumières! in 2022 and another 24 young people for Léonise Valois, une histoire vraie, réinventée in 2023. Quite a feat.

An atypical career

Philippe admits to having moved around a lot in his life: to name just a few places: Saint-Clet, Montreal, Longueuil and Vaudreuil-Dorion, where he still lives. 

“My father was a film distributor in Quebec, so I worked for him for a few years and then in a cinema,” he says. Philippe then studied at the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe drama school.

“In 2020, I felt that young people were being neglected during the pandemic. I started offering theater practices in day camps, a 2-group format lasting 2 weeks, every day.It was a kind of crash course.If I'm in a play, I try not to be a director at the same time. I prefer to wear one hat. The director concentrates on the whole, the actor on his role,” he explains.

His goals: “I always try to probe the world around me. Through theater, I want to express something alive. I try to be relevant - relevance is an essential word in Philippe's vocabulary.I don't just want to make noise, I'm trying to probe the collective unconscious. He quotes Pier Paolo Pasolini, believing as he did that the intellectual's duty is to speak... and I try to speak, to “say”, he adds.

He's only 31, but he can't see himself anywhere but in the arts, near or far, according to his own admission.

Philippe will also be on 3 puppet-habitat tours this summer, fall and winter, with the Imagicario company for three of their projects:

-Parédolia

-ERRA

-Les Soupis.

In short, an original young creator, open to unusual projects, of whom we haven't heard the last, because, as he so aptly puts it, he hasn't heard the last.

Philippe is co-founder of the troupe.Today, there are three of them to ensure the future of the organization: Isaac Béliveau, Technical Director, Floriane Vachon, Set Designer and Administrative Director, and Philippe Gauthier, Artistic Director. To keep up with the Théâtre de la Pièce cassée's activities, visit their Facebook page.

You can also visit the Musée régional de Vaudreuil-Soulanges page for the Théâtre de la Pièce cassée's recent award: https://www.mrvs.qc.ca/communiques-de-presse/prix-du-merite-patrimonial-2024/.