Ligne artistique
Since 1988, the Spectabilis Company has been imagining and creating performances for young audiences and general audiences alike, driven by the same ambition: to make theatre a space for encounter, emotion, and reflection that is accessible to everyone.
Founded by Cécile Schletzer, Régis Huet, Philippe Piau, and Maryse Pauleau, the company has spent more than thirty years championing artistic creation that is free, demanding, and deeply human. Contemporary theatre, object theatre, puppetry, shadow theatre, and hybrid forms: each production is conceived as a sensitive exploration of the world and its stories.
A Company Committed to Creative Freedom
Spectabilis builds its artistic identity around one essential principle: freedom of exploration. The company moves across different styles of writing, aesthetics, and theatrical forms in order to create singular works capable of reaching diverse audiences.
Rather than adhering to a single vision of staging, Spectabilis embraces a dialogue of perspectives. Each guest artist brings a new sensibility, enriching a collective approach grounded in diversity and the vitality of contemporary creation.
Faithful to author-driven theatre, the company supports projects in which both writing and staging can fully express their uniqueness.
Demanding Theatre for Young Audiences
From its very first production, Caramélimélo in 1988, Spectabilis demonstrated a strong commitment to young audiences. Since then, the company has developed performances that stimulate the imagination, nurture curiosity, and encourage young spectators to develop a sensitive and critical view of the world.
Through a wide variety of artistic forms, Spectabilis explores major human questions with poetry, humour, and intelligence, convinced that childhood is an essential territory for discovery, emotion, and thought.
Arts, Science, and Social Challenges
For more than twenty years, Spectabilis has used theatre to examine major contemporary issues linked to ecological, social, and human transitions. The company firmly believes that art offers another way of approaching complex subjects often perceived as technical or institutional.
Theatre creates a sensitive space where emotion, humour, and human experience make reflection, dialogue, and collective engagement possible. By combining artistic and scientific approaches, Spectabilis creates performances that question our ways of life, our collective responsibilities, and our relationship with the living world, while always leaving room for hope and imagination.
Theatre Accessible Across All Territories
Accessibility lies at the heart of Spectabilis’ project. Most of the company’s productions are designed to be technically autonomous, allowing performances to take place not only in theatres but also in non-traditional venues, as close as possible to local communities and territories.
This commitment is reflected in a longstanding partnership with the Loire-Anjou-Touraine Regional Natural Park, developed since 2004, which demonstrates the company’s strong local roots and its determination to bring culture everywhere.
Access to Culture for Everyone
Spectabilis affirms the fundamental right of every individual to access art and culture. This commitment takes shape through cultural outreach activities, educational workshops, and constant attention to the accessibility of performances. From the very beginning of the creative process, the company integrates inclusive devices for people with disabilities: audio description for several productions, including Anne Frank, Perce-Neige, Eyes Bigger Than the World, and Animal Farm; immersive sensory systems such as vibrating vests developed for The House of Small Cubes; and artistic and cultural education projects carried out with a wide range of audiences around themes such as memory, ageing, and social transitions.
For Spectabilis, accessibility is not a secondary adaptation: it is fully part of the artistic creation process itself.
A Company Active in Cultural Networks
Spectabilis actively contributes to the cultural and artistic sector through several professional and associative networks. As a member of organisations such as SAAS, Scène d’Enfance – ASSITEJ France, GRAINE Pays de la Loire, the PlatO network, and the Ça Chauffe festival, the company participates in collective reflection on the challenges facing live performance, theatre for young audiences, and access to culture.
Spectabilis Today
For more than three decades, Spectabilis has pursued the same ambition: to create a living, accessible, and demanding theatre capable of bringing generations together, provoking emotion, and opening spaces for shared reflection.
