Beyond Bernhardt: women performer-directors in Francophone theatres, 1790-1918

Start date: 1 November 2025

End date: 31 October 2028

Funder: Leverhulme Trust

Primary investigator: Dr Sophie Horrocks David

This project sits at the intersection between musicology, theatre studies, and French history. It rehabilitates forgotten female agency in the dual artistic-managerial practices of the long nineteenth-century. The project reveals women’s power to shape cultural institutions and advance musical practices in different stage contexts and across shifting political regimes, from Mlle Raucourt to Delphine Ugalde and Gabrielle Réjane. Recovering the place of female theatre manager within French society and the moral and legal restrictions it placed upon women also offers new understandings of nineteenth-century conceptions of female behaviour.