OPENING HOURS, ACcESS & ADMISSION 

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Jean-Vilar

General Information 

Located in the Maison Jean-Vilar, the Library attached to the Department of Performing Arts of the BnF offers over 33,000 books and periodicals on performing art as well as archives and documentation on festivals and performing arts in Avignon. It is accessible to everybody, researchers, students, professionals and amateurs and develops local partnerships with teaching and training structures.
 
Maison Jean-Vilar’s website
  • Wifi
  • Café

Maison Jean-Vilar

8, rue de Mons,
84000 Avignon
Phone : +33(0)4 90 27 22 84
Contact : maison-jean-vilar@bnf.fr
 

The reading room of the library is open:

Tuesdays to Fridays
from 2 PM to 6 PM
Saturdays
from 11 AM to 6 PM
Closed on Sundays and Mondays

Please note

  • The library is accessible upon request outside the official opening hours 
  • During the Festival d’Avignon in July, the Maison Jean-Vilar and the library are open every day with extended opening hours. 
  • Closed on bank holidays*
  • Annual closing: August and two weeks during the holiday season
*1 January, Easter Sunday and Monday, 1 and 8 May, Ascension Thursday, Pentecost Sunday and Monday, 15 August, 1 and 11 November, 25 December 

Research Library

The mission of the Avignon branch of the BnF,  attached to the Department of Performing Arts, is to collect, preserve and enhance the memory of the Avignon Festival, the festival OFF, the Winter festival and other venues in Avignon: archives, programs, press releases and folders, posters, photographies, videos. It also offers a large library specialized in performing arts, free of charge and open to all. In its two reading rooms of 40 places in total, every public is welcome - researchers, students, professionals, amateurs…

Library 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
  2PM
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6PM		 2PM
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6PM		 2PM
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6PM		 2PM
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6PM		 2PM
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​​​​​​​6PM		  

Access to the Library is entirely free of charge

Reading rooms 

  • 40 seats 
  • Group room  equipped for large screen projection

21,000 books available

  • 4,000 books on performing arts: theatre, dance, opera, cinema, circus, clowns, puppet theatre, mime artists, street theatre etc. in the main room
  • 17,000 texts of a classic and contemporary drama repertoire in the adjacent room 
  • About 100 general books on culture and cultural decentralization

and also

  • Albums featuring 10,000 photographies of the shows presented at the Festival d’Avignon, sorted  by year (1972-2013)
  • A selection of books on Jean Vilar, the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP) and the Festival d’Avignon as well as programs of the Festival d’Avignon and the Festival OFF

Catalogues and research tools  

The documents kept at the Bibliothèque de la Maison Jean-Vilar are listed in two online catalogs: 

Manuscripts and archive collections 

The records of each archive collection contain a short historical presentation as well as information on how to consult them. 
For some archive collections, inventories on paper can be consulted only on site. 
 

Manuscripts and Archive collections catalogue

Other documents 

To limit your research to the collections of the Maison Jean-Vilar, use the ‘Localization’ filter and opt for ‘Maison-Jean-Vilar’.
Not all the documents are yet listed in the General Catalogue. Some can be consulted on site on file catalogues, sorted by authors, well-known figures, titles, subjects, press or periodical articles. 

 

General Catalogue

Services

  • Communication of the archives of Jean Vilar and Jean Rouvert : ask for authorization at Association Jean-Vilar
  • Communication of heritage collections and storage book and periodicals
  • Free consultation of books, periodicals, photo albums, programs of the Festival d’Avignon and of the Festival OFF. 
  • Consultation of digital resources of the Bibliothèque nationale de France: Gallica intra muros, periodicals in digitized format, online database, Internet Archives etc. 
  • Information and Bibliographic research both on-site and remote
  • Article research by topic, place or weel-known figures (actor, director, choreographer, author, scenographer etc.)
  • Paying photocopying service 
  • Wifi access: visitors can use the ‘BNF’ wifi network available in both reading rooms of the Maison Jean-Vilar

Enhancing the collections  

  • We organize pedagogical activities on request and suited to your requirements (please request an appointment with the person in charge: Lenka Bokova (lenka.bokova@bnf.fr), phone: + 33(0)4 90 27 22 80)
  • Bibliographies on the Festivals d’Avignon and on Les Hivernales ara available
  • We showcase documents on current events of Performing Arts