Our story
LES SAGES FOUS
Les Sages Fous was founded by South Miller: an English-speaking woman born to American parents who grew up in New Brunswick and studied theater in New York, and Jacob Brindamour; a French-speaking Quebecer from a family of theater people who dreamed of sailing the seven seas.
The two partners left Montreal and settled in Trois-Rivières with a plan: to have enough space to create daring shows that would allow them to live out their dreams as traveling puppeteers. With its affordable rents, Trois-Rivières promised them artistic freedom. The duo was soon joined by Sylvain Longpré, who arrived from Montreal with several years of experience in puppet making and all kinds of entertainment. The three were theater enthusiasts with a passion for objects, ready to do anything to make a living from their art.
Les Sages Fous quickly gained international recognition and were part of the official selection of more than 250 theater festivals and theater seasons in 28 countries on four continents. The company is seen as an ambassador for the city of Trois-Rivières, having created 13 shows that have won more than 15 national and international awards at renowned festivals.
The Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppets and the Season of Unusual Theater are the starting points that led to the creation of the Fabrique de théâtre insolite (Factory of Unusual Theater). Founded in 2002 and 2009 respectively, these two events, which have invited more than 100 artistic groups from many countries, arose from the need to respond to the creative needs of both the company and the puppetry community:
- Need to present their works in progress to an audience that is curious, supportive, and interested in the creative process (Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppets);
- Need to have access to an extraordinary platform for unconventional forms of theater (Unusual Theater Season);
- Need to break the company’s regional isolation (lack of proximity to peers), to be inspired and nourished by encounters with other puppeteers.
Since 2007, we have been familiarizing ourselves with the area and have set up our workshop in an adjoining building behind Saint James Church, which serves as our headquarters and a place for our Micro-Festival of Unfinished Puppets to meet and socialize.
Since 2009, our Unusual Theater Season has taken over all the spaces around our workshop in Old Trois-Rivières, offering performances in the streets and alleys, gardens, abandoned stores, and temporary fairground installations (yurts, trailers, etc.).
At the end of 2018, we gained access for the first time to the church and convent, which form a single building. In these dilapidated yet hopeful spaces, we had the opportunity to organically test all the activities of what would become the future Fabrique de théâtre insolite.
Seven years of hard work later, our ambitious project dedicated to the creative process will come to fruition in November 2023.
After traveling the world with our traveling shows, we will finally have a place that will allow us to have a year-round, local, and sustainable presence in our city and region.
We will thus be able to fully share with local audiences all the contacts, networks, and knowledge we have acquired over two decades of international presence.
