Jeune Lune’s name – “Theatre of the new moon” – reflect’s the company’s commitment to finding theatrical sustenance by looking for the new in the old. The name comes from a little poem by Bertolt Brecht: As the people say, at the moon’s change of phases / The new moon holds for one night long / The old moon in its arms.The strong and tender care that the future shows for the past describes the dialectic that informs all of Jeune Lune’s work: striving to link a past heritage of popular performance traditions – from circus and classical farce to commedia dell’arte and vaudeville – to their present function within the local community and the larger international community of cultural production. While embracing the ‘old moon’ of theatrical tradition, Jeune Lune seeks to create an entirely new kind of theatre that is immediate, high spirited, passionately physical, and visually spectacular. These commitments are reflected our Credo:

We are a theatre of directness, a theatre that speaks to its audience, that listens and needs a response. We believe that theatre is an event. We are a theatre of emotions – an immediate theatre – a theatre that excites and uses a direct language –
a theatre of the imagination.

The sharing of artistic responsibilities among members of the artistic company has allowed Theatre de la Jeune Lune to develop a collaborative vision of theatre and a distinctive approach to performance that has garnered national and international attention for its immediacy, its physicality, its poetic beauty, and its imaginative richness. The company is distinctive in its commitment to a permanent ensemble of performers who work collaboratively to create productions that are distinctively their own. Company members not only perform, they also write, design, and direct Jeune Lune productions.