Aurélian-Marie Lugné-poe

(pseudonym of Aurélian-Marie Lugné). Born Dec. 27, 1869, in Paris; died June 19, 1940, in Villeneuve lès-Avignon. French director and actor.

Beginning in 1888, Lugné-Poe worked in the Theatre-Libre of A. Antoine and simultaneously studied at the Paris Conservatory. Together with the poet and critic C. Mauclair, Lugne-Poe founded the Theatre de I’Oeuvre in Paris in 1893 and was its head until 1929. Striving to renew and enrich the expressive means of theatrical art, Lugne-Poe was an advocate of poetic theater, as opposed to the “prose” of bourgeois reality. However, his artistic experiments led to the reinforcement of symbolist aesthetics. In the 1930’s he presented performances in various theaters of Paris. Lugne-Poe wrote memoirs about the French theater from the 1890’s to the early 20th century.