• A touring theatre company (in France and abroad) who write and produce many of their own performances.
• 14 part-time members of the performing arts professions and 3 permanent staff.
• Plays and shows ready to be performed.
• Large-scale outdoors performances such as « Le Capitaine Fracasse », « Jacquou le Croquant » and «The Hunchback of Notre Dame».
• Theatre workshops for many of the different branches of the performing arts : Acting, Production, Voice, Props, Stage Design, Costumes, Weekly workshops and training courses.
• An arts meeting place in Bergerac with a fully-equipped hall and training in the performing arts for children, adolescents and adults, voice and circus workshops.

The theatre company was established in 1978 by Gérard Guillemin and Christine Good and finds inspiration for much of its dramatic material in historical writings and the songs which have marked everyday life of the French people - from the Revolution and its patriotic songs, through « La Belle Epoque » with its catchy tunes to the twentieth century and Edith Piaf and al. A combination of poetry, comedy, pain and hope. La Gargouille’s performances, audacious and tender by turn, create an intimate relationship with the public. In 1993 the Gargouille became the « Théatre Populaire du Périgord ».

La Gargouille is a professional, touring theatre company whose roots may be in the Périgord but which has strong ties to the rest of the Aquitaine. The company has several distinct strands :
• Creation and production of the company’s own performances most of which are mounted in Bergerac before touring the whole of France and sometimes abroad (Quebec 90-91, England 97).
• Training, with three theatre schools: for children, adolescents, adults, voice and circus workshops in Bergerac, and performances and workshops in primary and secondary schools.
• Social rehabilitation or help in returning to the job market with training offered in various branches of the performing arts.
These steps are all taken in conjunction with local organisations : local councils, arts centres, teachers, training centres etc.
• Large-scale open air performances at the end of several months training give student actors or set designers or wardrobe-mistresses or props persons or lighting technicians a chance to put into action, within the framework of a professional theatre company, all they have learnt over the proceeding months. What better apprenticeship in various performing-arts related trades than direct confrontation with a public fully conscious of the realities of show business ?
• ”Breeding ground” for artists at the “P’tit Chat Noir”, a fully-equipped pocket theatre that welcomes other companies and bodies for training... (the Roy Hart Theatre, for example)


The Beliefs and Aims of the Company

We believe it to be extremely important for a local theatre company like ours, which is alWe believe it to be extremely important for a local theatre company like ours, which is always open to new ideas, to consider theatre is all its guises : artistic, traditional and contemporary, street theatre, dance, mime, audio-visual as well as stage performances, visual or literary, with - always as a guiding principle - strong ties to our training programmes and youth activities.
We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in the world and it is the duty of writers and directors and actors to use their words to transmit ideas, feelings, emotions and to share a sense of humanity of which we are all more than ever in need.
This, through its various theatrical productions, its youth training projects and exchanges with other theatre companies, is what La Gargouille tries to do.
The company has set new objectives for 2003-2004 and has implemented a programme which runs until 2006 and combines theatrical productions, training and studying, exchanges with other companies and extensive touring with performances planned once more for Quebec and also the Reunion Isles.

Our range of harmoniously developed activities allow us to reach our goal which is :
To work towards an innovative, modern, people’s theatre, open and available to everyone everywhere, and towards the creation of a genuine, peripatetic culture whose artistic development, research and cultural conviviality is inspired by historical events and real people. The motivation behind this is to thus discover our true artistic identity.

La Gargouille « Théatre Populaire du Périgord » has always been proud to take theatre into rural environments, performing in small village halls and schools as happily as in the larger theatres of the Périgord’s official circuit.

Gérard GUILLEMIN, whose wealth of previous collaboration with Georges LAVAUDANT, Ariel GARCIA-VALDES, Catherine DASTE … still inspires even more creativity and professionalism in theatrical productions.
 

- The City of Bergerac
- Regional Council of the Dordogne
- Regional Council of Aquitaine
- Greater Bergerac Area
- The City of Lalinde
- L.E.A.D.E.R. +
- Europe