"Théâtre de la Huchette" Top 5 Page for this destination Literary Paris Tip by Nemorino

On a rainy Friday evening in November 1966 -- it was November 28, to be exact, and the Métro was on strike -- I went to a small theater in the Latin Quarter and saw two absurdist plays by Eugene Ionesco called La Cantatrice chauve (usually given in English as The Bald Soprano) and La Leçon (The Lesson).

The amazing thing at the time was that these two plays had been performed every night at the Théâtre de la Huchette since February 16, 1957, so they were in their tenth year of continuous performance when I saw them in 1966.

Fast forward to 2011: the same two plays are still playing every night (well, six nights a week, since they're closed on Sundays) in the same theater. I wanted to see them again, but they were sold out on the one evening I could have gone. I think they are usually sold out in advance, since the theater only has eighty-five seats.

In my photo of the theater it says "53 ans" (53 years), but I think by now they must have changed that to 54. That works out to nearly seventeen thousand performances and nearly one and a half million spectators since 1957.

Address: 23 Rue de la Huchette, 75 005 Paris
Directions:
Vélib' 5033
Métro Saint Michel
GPS 48°51'10.75" North; 2°20'43.35" East
Phone: 01 43 26 38 99
Website: http://www.theatre-huchette.com/