The prodigy actor and director Alexis Michalik is the guest of Phillipe Vandel, in "Culture Médias".
The artist with the five Molières explains how he works, while the five plays he has written are all currently being performed in Paris.
The bearer
of stories
at the Théâtre des Béliers in Paris,
Le cercle des
illusionistes at the Splendid,
Intra-muros
at the Théâtre de la Pépinière,
Edmond
at the Théâtre du Palais Royal and
Une histoire
d'amou
r at La Scala ...
Director Alexis Michalik, also an actor and writer, has five plays to his credit.
Rarely, they are all played continuously since their premiere, and therefore currently simultaneously.
Having come to present his latest production,
A Love Story
, in which he plays, the virtuoso of French theater explains to Philippe Vandel how he juggles daily between his five shows.
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Regular updates with his actors
With his five shows, Alexis Michalik finds himself in the direction of a hundred actors.
Artists who are rarely headliners, which facilitates recruitment ... and leaves the possibility of replacing them easily without impacting the performance.
"This allows, when the success continues and the actors have other commitments, to hire new actors who play alternately," he reveals.
"And that doesn't change a thing, because the audience comes to see the show, not a headliner."
"
The bearer of stories
was a somewhat surprised success, and from there I continued to work in the same way", adds the artist to the five Molières.
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With the post-confinement recovery, Alexis Michalik had time to attend the rehearsals of the five pieces before the performances.
Usually, he makes sure to be there at least when it comes time to integrate a new comedy.
It is during rehearsals and spinning that Alexis Michalik delivers his advice (in the theater they are called "notes"), the opportunity for him to check that his pieces are always performed as he wishes, even six years after the premiere.
Surprise casting and equal pay
The arrival of a new actor is a special moment for Alexis Michalik.
The casting of these new actors can be done in a surprising way, as during his last vacation with friends, where he had just completed the writing of his last play,
A love story,
in which he plays.
"I proposed a reading, to have the opinion of my relatives. I distributed the roles a little by chance, in particular to my friends Juliette Delacroix and Marie-Camille Soyer", he recalls.
"After half an hour, we were crying. I said to myself 'It works, we are not going to rack our brains any more than that, it is they who will play both roles."
Alexis Michalik is also known to pay the same fee to each of the artists he hires.
"For a given show, each actor will be paid the same as his or her colleague," he confirms.
"This amount may vary from one show to another, because not all have the same audience level per performance".
The artist's hyperactivity is still partially slowed down by the health crisis.
His sixth show, the musical
The Producers
, was scheduled for September 2020. "It was first postponed to January 2021, then to September 2021," laments Alexis Michalik.
"Social distancing measures are impossible to maintain when you make a big creation."
But not enough to stop the actor, who is currently preparing for the filming of a TV movie with Marie Gillain.